On a Thursday morning in late January, three homeless men watched as an L.A. Recreation and Parks Department crew cleaned out a homeless encampment in lower Temescal Canyon, near the park bathrooms. Two armed police from the city’s General Services Department were also on hand, along with Palisades Senior Lead Officer Michael Moore. According to Moore, the workers were taking away items that belonged to Seth Greenspan, who is currently in jail because of a probation violation involving a robbery at the nearby Tahitian Terrace mobile home park. The three homeless men knew him. ‘Seth was cool,’ said Randall Bartoshevich. ‘He’s fine when he’s on his meds.’ Bartoshevich and his friends, who identified themselves only as Rudy and Rick, had hidden their belongings once they received the mandatory 72-hour notice of the sweep. They talked openly about their situation. Rick and Rudy said they are both on medication, which doesn’t allow them to work. ‘I’m having a good day, today,’ said Rudy, who is from Burbank. Rick joked, ‘I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell.’ Bartoshevich has neuropathy in his left arm and both legs, which prevents him from standing for long. ‘Medi-Cal wouldn’t give me a wheelchair,’ he said, so he recently bought an electric scooter for $1,050, after saving some of the $900 a month he gets from disability. He plugs in the scooter in at a friend’s house and can travel 40 miles on a six-hour charge. ‘I’m a happy homeless person,’ Bartoshevich said. ‘I don’t bother nobody.’ All three men were fiercely protective of their ‘home area,’ and complained about the homeless who move in when homeless sweeps are conducted in other areas like Santa Monica and Topanga. ‘They steal from us, just like they steal from you,’ Rudy said. ‘We don’t like to wake up and find some of our stuff stolen. We try to run the idiots out.’ The three describe their turf as a ‘retirement center.’ If people are on drugs and come to where they are, the three send them to ‘Meth Mountain,’ their term for the brush-covered terrain below Via de la Olas. ‘You look down from Via at night and you see the fires burning,’ Rick said. ‘That’s where all the dopers hang out,’ Bartoshevich added. The three said they have known each other for close to 20 years. As they chat with a reporter, their radio on a picnic table is tuned in to Rush Limbaugh. ‘He’d like to kill us,’ said Rudy, ‘but we listen to him anyway.’ They make it clear that they have never hurt anyone and that they cause no trouble. If they want to get warm, they light a fire in one of the barbecue grills in the park (just north of PCH). They were upset about the ‘Chico’ fire, which burned a patch of hillside above Temescal Canyon Road in October. The three name each fire after the person who starts it. They claim they had warned one LAPD officer that the man burned candles and was a danger. ‘He was passing out with candles burning.’ ‘Chico’ is no longer in Temescal. ‘We ran him out of this canyon,’ the three said. In early January a year ago, another fire on the other side of the canyon was called the ‘Smiley’ fire. ‘We ran him out, too.’ They understand that homeowners along the canyon rims worry about their homes. ‘We’re angry, too,’ Rudy said. ‘They have a $2-million home, but mine was $22 and I don’t want to lose it, either.’ Randall Bartoshevich wasn’t always homeless. He shared an apartment with his wife until they lost one of their jobs and had to move outside. Then his wife died four years ago, after being struck by a car along PCH. He has no other family. For $435 a month, he could have an apartment downtown on Skid Row, which consists of a small room, a bed and a sink. But, he said, ‘You have to step over bodies on Skid Row. I can’t live there.’ The three friends continued listening to their radio as the sweep continued up the canyon. Six large encampments and several smaller ones were cleaned out. Mattresses, chairs, tables, lawn furniture, wood and other bulky items as well as numerous bags of debris and garbage were hauled out. The load packer, which has a capacity of eight tons, was filled.
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