After Decades of Defiance, a California Hippie Commune Is Defeated

SFGate ^ | Oct 1, 2025 | Matt LaFever

[nickcarraway]

Supervisors move to dismantle the infamous Yee Haw commune tucked in the hills east of Trinidad

After 25 years of warnings, fines and broken promises, Humboldt County supervisors finally voted last week to crack down on the infamous Yee Haw commune. Their unanimous decision set in motion plans to clear the 10-acre property of unpermitted structures and hazards, a move that would displace the approximate 10 residents who currently call it home and strip longtime owner Charles Garth of control. Officials say the site is riddled with environmental dangers and dotted with ramshackle dwellings that fail to meet even the most basic safety standards.

Less than nine months before, Garth had stood at the supervisors’ dais, pleading for more time. He promised to pay down thousands in fees and bring the property into compliance. The board granted him that grace period. But last Tuesday, supervisors made clear their patience had run out.

“We had a yearlong plan to go through the steps in this process, and those things didn’t happen,” Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo said. “... We need to take a different approach today.” First District Supervisor Rex Bohn was even blunter: “Nothing, nada, nothing has happened.”

Home or health hazard?

For residents, Yee Haw has provided freedom, community and a foothold in the forested hills east of Trinidad. Tucked off Highway 101 through a tunnel of fern and forest, the property became a refuge for people priced out of Humboldt’s punishing housing market. According to the California Housing Partnership, Humboldt County renters must earn 1.5 times the state minimum wage to afford the average rent, while 85% of extremely low-income households spend more than half of their income on housing. Against that backdrop, Garth’s patchwork of makeshift homes offered an alternative.

[nickcarraway]

Once again, right-wing California is out to get the hippies.

[Beowulf9]

Translation: The land value is to the moon in San Francisco!

[gunnut]

As much as I don’t care for a bunch of stinking hippies, I hate government control of peoples’ property even more. Now it is just a land grab.

[Jonty30]

Another translation. Is that is millions to be made by selling the hippie land.

[Reddy]

Humboldt County is paradise on earth. Too bad someone has to pay the taxes on that paradise.

[fr_freak]

...Ford reported, no applications had been submitted, no septic testing completed, and none of the $63,000 in penalties paid.

The government wants its money or it takes your land.

Also: Inspectors first cited the property in 2001, uncovering 15 unpermitted structures riddled with hazards — unsafe stairways, faulty wiring, and wood stoves without ventilation.

"Unsafe stairways" which I bet means things like three steps without a railing, or three steps where the boards creak. Imagine our pioneer ancestors laughing at what we consider "unsafe". And "wood stoves without ventilation" probably means there wasn't some over-built chimney structure that conformed to Sacramento's 550 page building code. And most likely we're talking about little stoves that they're running in the middle of the old school bus they're living in.

That's the government way: create a million ridiculous regulations and then fine people for not following them to the letter, and then take their land when they can't pay the exorbitant fines.

[nickcarraway]

You are not wrong.

[Scrambler Bob]

How many deaths or injuries or diseases have been caused by this Commune?

[gunnut]

Now they can just go live on the streets of San Francisco and just crap on the street.

[Aeneas2112]

Fewer than Ted Kennedy’s car.

[Varsity Flight]

📌

[dayglored]

> As much as I don’t care for a bunch of stinking hippies, I hate government control of peoples’ property even more. Now it is just a land grab.

I agree. As long as they weren't creating a hazardous situation for other people (non-residents), the officials ought to leave 'em alone. It sounds like they were way out of the way of everybody else. Now the residents will have to figure out somewhere to live, and it won't be pretty either.

Damn greedy land-grabbing politicians. There would have to be one helluva "other side of the story" to make me change my mind. And a bunch of damn building code regulations and fines is not a sufficient story.

[Secret Agent Man]

Hmm. California is so screwed up, I’m on the side of no one in this article.

[fr_freak]

How many deaths or injuries or diseases have been caused by this Commune?

I don't know. Do you? How many deaths do you think would be caused by "unsafe stairways" or ""wood stoves without ventilation", because I'm betting that number was zero.

[Organic Panic]

Insanity. It is private property and the government trashes them.

YET. Bums can take over streets, parks, forest or BLM land and the government lets them and even supports them. We have hundreds of acres near me with broken down RVs tents stolen cars and mountains of stolen shopping carts. The government sends in trash service, ports potties, water, and local churches give them food and propane.

[rfp1234]

Defeated? I thought the word in the headline had an extra “c”.

[Tacrolimus1mg]

Generally speaking, I agree.

My only concern is human waste. If they’re not disposing of it properly, they can be causing serious issues with groundwater and on neighboring properties of a lower elevation. It kinda sounds like that may be the case here.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

"Teacher! Leave them kids alone!"

I say it's nobody's business. I'd tell the law to butt out.

[AlaskaErik]

You’d think they’d have squatter’s rights by now.

[Nateman]

Some of the buildings look like lots of work went into them. If they were well armed and did regular training they would have won. Probably too stoned most of the time to defend themselves.