20 Families Say They Have No Place to Go : Hog Farm Residents Ignore County’s Order to Move

Most of the about 20 families living in an illegal village of camper shells, travel trailers and makeshift plywood houses on a Saugus hog ranch so far have ignored a county order to move off the property.

George Hadnot, 59, who leases the 100-acre ranch on Lost Creek Road in Vasquez Canyon, said Monday that only three of the dwellings had been vacated. Hadnot asked residents to leave last week after Los Angeles County officials told him to have the ranch dwellers off the property by Sunday because of health, zoning and fire violations.

Some of the residents said Monday that they have not moved because they can find no other place to live that they can afford. Others said they are holding out until they are forced to leave.

‘Waiting for Official Orders’

“We’re waiting for official orders,” said Jose Contreras, an unemployed cook who lives with his family in a trailer on the ranch. “Then, maybe we’ll move.”

Daniel Hon, an attorney for the ranch’s owner, Charles J. Lyons Jr., said he will go to court to remove the residents if they do not voluntarily comply with the county’s order to leave the property.

“It’s a tragic situation,” Hon said. “But we have no choice.”

County officials also will go to court to force evictions if the ranch is not vacated soon, according to Bob Kinkead, head of the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Department’s zoning enforcement division. First, an inspector will check out the settlement again this week, he said.

The settlement grew up a few years ago after Hadnot began allowing friends who had no place to live to move their trailers onto the property. Before long, he said, at least 20 families had settled there.

Residents describe it as a close-knit community of blacks, whites and Latinos in which one family will cook dinner for all the neighbors on a weekend.

Unlike Contreras, most residents said they will leave voluntarily if they can find accommodations they can afford.

Bob Gustafson, 62, a part-time school custodian, said he and his wife, Ruby, 71, have been looking for a space to rent for their trailer for six months.

“There’s just nothing, especially for older trailers,” he said. “We’ve looked everywhere from Sun Valley to Mojave.”

Narcicio Villalobos, who raises 300 goats, pigs, sheep and cows on the property, said he does not know what his family of 10 will do if they are forced to move.

“I guess we will have to sell the animals,” he said.

His daughter-in-law, Chanti Villalobos, said the family is an exception at the settlement.

“We are not that poor,” she said. “We moved here to be near the animals, and we wanted to get away from the problems in the city. We used to live in Reseda.”

Kinkead said county officials “are not interested in penalties against anyone. We’re interested in compliance with the law. We have to follow the law. This is a situation that should never have occurred.”

The canyon settlement, along the banks of a dry creek, is, in effect, an illegal trailer park because recreational vehicles are used as housing units, Kinkead said.

Power Lines Not Up to Code

“This is a shanty town,” he said. “My real concern is for the health and safety for the people on the property.”

Several electrical lines that do not meet county codes have been installed by residents and could cause “a tragic fire,” Kinkead said.

Publicity about the county’s order to disband the settlement has done little to help residents find homes, Hadnot said. A minister from Orange County offered to take a family of four if none drank or smoked, but no one took him up on his offer, Hadnot said.