Luck be a lady tonight

From the Las Vegas Review Journal: TOUGH TIMES REMOVE SOME OF THE SHINE (yeah, the caps are there in the original, OK?)

Las Vegas is not just a place where people are born and live. It is an enterprise.

It is a deal people enter, a set of givens agreed upon: More is better. Biggest is best.

To live in Las Vegas is to stake your future on this enterprise -- for better or worse.

For the past 20 years, it has been for better. The unemployment rate was minuscule. Gleaming new casinos were built on "old" casinos like so many sandcastles on a beach. Hundreds of neat stucco houses promised a palm tree or a pool or both for nearly everyone with a paycheck.

When times were good, the buzz of a booming Las Vegas was a siren song for all types. Retirees, young families, Californians lured by low taxes, East Coast natives lured by high temperatures. For years, Las Vegas sat near the top of lists of fastest growing cities.

Growth was a dinner party topic. Did you see that new shopping center opened? Have you been to the new casino?

Donald "Butch" Youshaw and his girlfriend, Bernie Jones, heard the call.

"Come out West. Get a job. They're booming. They're hiring," they remember being told. "Casinos are going up. The housing market is going up."

In 2002, the couple drove across the country, towing his classic Mercedes Benz. Youshaw, along with his mother, a retired nurse, bought a three-bedroom stucco home. It had a fig tree in back and no stairs, good for his sister, who uses a wheelchair and was expected to join them.

Still, others seemed to be soaring. His neighbor was gobbling up investment properties as home values headed north. Youshaw imagined he might try his hand at real estate, but first he needed money to spruce up the home he already owned.

His mother saw an ad on television for a refinancing program. She called the number and got a new loan with ease and little clear explanation. But the loan came with hidden fees and higher monthly payments, and Youshaw fell $25,000 in arrears before the bank foreclosed. Stunned at how quickly his fortunes turned, Youshaw says, "I'm living like I did when I was 19."

Today he and Jones spend their days in a home they rent just blocks from the one he lost. Youshaw has pawned jewelry and even took out a payday loan at 200 percent interest to pay the gas bill. Today he and Jones spend their days in a home they rent just blocks from the one he lost. Youshaw has pawned jewelry and even took out a payday loan at 200 percent interest to pay the gas bill.

Pawn-tastic, isn't it?