A new tiny home village with about 200 beds for people experiencing homelessness opened Monday in Sun Valley, expanding interim housing capacity in the northeast San Fernando Valley as Los Angeles continues to grapple with moving people off the streets into permanent housing.
The Olinda Tiny Home Village, at 8360 San Fernando Road, includes 120 tiny homes and will be operated by Hope the Mission, one of the region’s largest homeless service providers. Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla joined organization officials and community members for a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the site’s opening.
Each 64-square-foot tiny home includes two beds, heating and air conditioning, windows, a desk and a front door, according to Hope the Mission. Residents will also have access to meals, showers, laundry, case management, housing navigation, mental health services and job training.
Padilla, who represents Council District 6, including Sun Valley, said the village is intended to provide more than a place to sleep, offering services to help residents transition from the streets to permanent housing.
“I’m a true believer that in order to address the homeless crisis, we need to do a combination of building the interim housing, as well as the permanent supportive [housing],” Padilla said. “This was my attempt to add more to the space of interim.”
People coming off the streets may need mental health support, help obtaining documents, job training or counseling before they are ready to move into permanent housing, Padilla said. Depending on their circumstances, residents could stay at the village for as little as three months or as long as two years, she said.
Ken Craft, founder and CEO of Hope the Mission, said the tiny homes are meant to give people living on the streets a place to regain stability while working toward permanent housing. He described each unit as “a small transformation center” where residents can have their basic needs met and begin rebuilding their lives.
“A site like this, it really does bring dignity to somebody,” he said. “There’s probably nothing more undignifying than having to live on the streets.”
Hope the Mission has moved 785 people into permanent housing since January across its programs, Craft said.
“The marker of our success isn’t solely just how many we get off the streets, but how many we can get back into permanent housing,” he said.
The opening comes as Los Angeles is confronting renewed pressure on both ends of the system. This year’s point-in-time count estimated 45,194 people experiencing homelessness in the city, up 3.4% from last year after two consecutive years of declines. Unsheltered homelessness increased 7.9%.
City and regional homelessness officials have also pointed to a slowdown in moving people from interim housing into permanent homes. LAHSA reported that such placements fell 36% last year, from 12,120 to 7,770. The agency attributed much of that slowdown to reductions in Time-Limited Subsidies, short term rental assistance used to help people move into permanent housing.
That slowdown matters for facilities such as Olinda because people remaining longer in interim housing can leave fewer beds available for those living on the streets. LAHSA reported that movement from the streets into interim housing fell 8% last year, while movement from interim housing back to the streets increased 24%.
In a statement Monday, Bass said tiny homes are part of the city’s effort to reduce the cost of Inside Safe and its reliance on motels while expanding permanent housing.
“Leveraging tiny homes as interim housing is a key part of our strategy to reduce the cost of Inside Safe and move away from housing homeless Angelenos in motels as we work to expedite the building of permanent housing across L.A.,” Bass said in a statement.The Sun Valley project is part of an effort to build more than 500 tiny homes across Los Angeles, according to the mayor’s office.