Fairways May Displace Couple and Their Home in the Rough

Ask Bob, a bearded, grizzled man, what he sees when he gazes into the sky above the Big Tujunga Wash, and he won’t spin yarns of flying saucers or almond-eyed aliens who purportedly abducted and interrogated two terrified local women 40 years ago.

Instead, he’ll talk about the two families of red-tailed hawks he knows by sight or the great horned owl he likes to watch glide through the air, or the violently yellow wild parrots he glimpses when he’s lucky. Likewise, his helpmeet, Ivy, speaks warmly about their feathered companions, but she also spares fond words for the furry creatures--rabbits, deer, even coyotes--who keep the two of them company on terra firma.

For the past two years, the homeless pair have lived at the wash in a makeshift camp just off Wentworth Street. And they lament what they believe will be the certain destruction of wildlife if a proposed golf course gets city permission to occupy 350 acres of the wash.

“There are so many species that need a lot of space to live,” Bob says, as Ivy echoes his opposition to the project. “Where are they gonna go?”

But in an ironic stroke, the couple have become an unwitting part of the argument in favor of the links, and find themselves at the fore of a rancorous debate between developers and conservationists warring over what kind of “birdie” ought to prevail at the Big Tujunga Wash in the coming years. Two homeless folks are caught in the middle of a multimillion-dollar political tug of war between those who want to build sand traps and those who want to keep the big one nature made.

Environmentalists contend that a bucolic treasure would be wiped out by the project, including flora and fauna on the endangered-species list. Supporters of the golf course counter by calling the wash a public “eyesore” inhabited by transients who peddle illicit drugs to unwary teen-agers.

Apparently, they mean Bob and Ivy (no surnames, please).

“Down here, we’re the only two, and we’re definitely no druggies,” Ivy says with a snort of derision, her beaded earring dancing in her indignation. “We don’t sell nothing or even use anything. . . . That’s the best way for them to try to build the golf course. They think homeless people are nitwits.”

Which she and Bob, most certainly, are not.

Ivy, 41, is a former social worker who quit her job in disgust when Ronald Reagan was reelected President eight years ago. It was too heart-wrenching, she says, to see “the ugliness he was doing to people--taking people off of Medicaid, taking food stamps from people.”

Bob, 42, is a mechanic by training, although an arm paralyzed by polio makes working difficult.

And their encampment--a tiny clearing shielded by long spears of bamboo--is a nice and tidy refuge, if a little dirty. An old car seat and a shabby patio chair occupy a corner, while soiled clothes are hidden primly under a tarp, beside an odd assortment of backpacks and ski boots, a transistor radio, a picnic cooler and some spare blankets. Plastic bags of bread hang suspended from a tree to deter rats, about the only animals they don’t appreciate.

“We’re not really homeless. We’re houseless,” Bob says with a twinkle in his eye. “We have a bigger back yard than most people. And more pets, too.” Next to the couple’s sleeping bags are some of their most prized possessions: two dozen tattered books, including political thrillers by Len Deighton and tales of love and betrayal by Colleen McCullough, which help pass afternoons spent at a nearby park.

“We’re both readers,” Ivy says as she unconsciously smooths her long brown braid for the umpteenth time. “I like Louis L’Amour. My old man turned me on to him and I said, ‘Holy Moses, it’s great.’ I also like Stephen King. Bob likes everything.”

“Except romances,” he says firmly, a copy of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” within easy reach.

The world hasn’t been so brave or kind to him, he acknowledges, scratching his beard. He mentions turning points, like the time he was convicted of a felony (“I got drunk and got into trouble”) and the breakup of his 13-year marriage, but he doesn’t elaborate on either. The death of his daughter can still call tears and a flush to his already haggard face.

He and Ivy met four years ago, when both of them were already out on the streets. To Ivy, a recovering alcoholic who was dealing with the recent death of her common-law husband and the removal of their two young daughters from her care by child-welfare authorities, it was fate.

“We’re both Scorpios,” she says, “and it was just meant to be.”

The “dear Lord” has kept her and Bob safe and healthy, despite floods that have washed away their belongings and nearly their lives, says Ivy, a deeply religious woman. Churchgoing folk have helped fill the gaps with food and clothing. And Bob can still find odd jobs--or at least enough aluminum cans and recyclable bottles--to keep them going until they realize a modest dream: getting back Ivy’s daughters, now 4 and 6, and, somehow, buying a motor home.

But the golf course may oust them first. A public hearing before the Los Angeles Planning Commission is scheduled for Thursday. Or they may be thrown off the lot even sooner, as developer Steve Timm has threatened to do. If that happens, they sigh, it’s not themselves they worry about, but their friends.

What will become of the blue jay that yaks at Ivy every morning before dawn to demand its daily bread? Or Teddy, the couple’s pit bull mutt? Or the coyote pups that prowl around the wash?

“Even if they only developed 10 acres right here, they’re taking that much habitat,” Bob says. “And some species are gonna suffer for it.”

Except Bob and Ivy. They’re survivors.