On Hog Ranch, Tight-Knit Clan Is Told to Leave a Rustic Home

The small settlement began to spring up a few years ago when George Hadnot allowed a friend to move a trailer onto his 100-acre hog ranch in the Vasquez Canyon area of Saugus.

One thing led to another, Hadnot said, until about 20 families were living in numerous camper shells, trailers and makeshift plywood houses on the property on Lost Canyon Road.

“Things just started spreading like wildfire,” Hadnot, 59, recalled Thursday. “People living here told other people who had no place to live and they moved in.”

But in May, county officials informed the rancher that, although ranch residents pay no rent, it is illegal for them to live there in separate homes without a zoning permit from the county.

And two weeks ago, county Regional Planning Department officials--citing health, zoning and fire violations--ordered Hadnot to have the ranch dwellers off the property by Sunday. If he doesn’t, they warned, the county might come in and bulldoze the trailers and makeshift dwellings.

Hadnot said he handed out eviction notices Wednesday.

‘Just Trying to Help Somebody’

“It was the saddest day of my life,” he said. “They have nowhere else to go. But I have no choice. I have to evict them.

“I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. I was just trying to help somebody.”

The settlement, along the banks of a dry creek in the small canyon, resembles a primitive village. Trailers of all types dot the landscape. Campers sit on wooden blocks. Old cars are parked here and there. Empty cans and bottles and other debris are strewn along the property’s boundaries.

Several dogs, sleeping in the shade of trees and trailers to escape the midday heat, stir occasionally to chase a stray chicken, goose or duck. Now and then a goat from a nearby ranch ambles over to the dwellings. Several children play around the area as adults gather in the shade under homemade wooden awnings.

Hadnot said he hasn’t bothered to keep count of just how many people live on his ranch. There appear to be at least several dozen--some white, some black and some Latino. Most of the men work as farm laborers.

“It doesn’t matter” how many there are, Hadnot said. “We’re all just really one big family here.”

Last Sunday, Bernardina Mesa, 62, cooked dinner for everyone living on the property.

“That’s the way it is here every Sunday,” Hadnot said. “We all get together and people take turns fixing the food. Everybody chips in. When the water well went out, all the people chipped in to get it fixed.”

Hadnot faces six months in jail and a fine of up to $500 for every day after Sunday that he allows the ranch dwellers to stay.

Jo Anne Darcy, Santa Clarita Valley aide to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the area, said the county Fire Department first raised concerns about the settlement. If a fire were to start in the compound, it not only would endanger people living there but also could destroy a tract of expensive homes in an adjoining canyon, she said.

No ‘Proper Sanitation’

“It’s just unsafe,” she said. “There isn’t proper sanitation.

“I feel sorry for the people. . . . I don’t know where they will go.”

Last week, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies found something else wrong at the ranch. They confiscated more than 1,000 marijuana plants on a portion of the property that was leased to a tenant. Hadnot and his assistant, Sharon Holmes, who lives in a trailer on the property, said they were unaware that the tenant was growing marijuana.

Mesa has one of the largest families in the settlement. Seven of her 12 children and several of her grandchildren live in trailers on the ranch.

“We’ve lived here one year and six months,” Mesa said in Spanish. “I don’t know where we’ll go. We have no place else.”

Would Miss Animals

Her granddaughter, Briselda Mesa, 9, who was playing nearby, said the family has relatives in Pacoima and Palmdale. But she said she likes life on the ranch and does not want to move to the city.

“I like the animals and I have room to play with my friends,” she said.

Mesa and other tenants, including Jose Contreras, an unemployed cook, said their families most likely will move by Sunday. However, Bob Gustafson, a two-year ranch resident, said he will not move because no trailer park will rent him space for his trailer because it is too old.

“That’s one of the problems,” Holmes said. “All of these trailers are too old and too small. No park will accept them.”

Holmes said many of the families will miss the life style of the ranch.

“It’s so quiet and peaceful here,” she said. “It’s a happy place. People are happy here.”

Hadnot said he will not stay if everyone else leaves. He is not tied to the land, having leased it since 1971 from a Paramount man, whose father started the ranch. The landowner could not be reached for comment.

“If these people go, then so will I,” Hadnot said. “I’m getting out of Los Angeles County. I’ll probably go back to Texas, where I’m from.”

If he had it to do over again, Hadnot said, he still would allow the people to live on the property.

“Better the people live here than out on the streets of Los Angeles,” he said.