A new 208-bed tiny-home community has opened beside the Sun Valley Metrolink station—but this corner of the Valley has a surprisingly similar housing story dating back nearly 80 years.
The Olinda Tiny Home Village opened August 10, 2026 on city-owned property at 8358 San Fernando Road / 11080 Olinda Street. Hope the Mission operates the interim-housing site, which provides climate-controlled shelters along with meals, showers, laundry, case management, mental-health services and housing assistance.
A Tiny-Home Village Designed as a Community
KADRE Architects designed the Sun Valley project along with a similar village in Van Nuys. The two projects provide 311 beds combined and were developed on an accelerated ten-month schedule.
Rather than simply arranging shelters in rows, KADRE incorporated brightly painted walkways, landscaping and common areas intended to create more of a neighborhood environment.
Not Everyone Supported the Project
The tiny-home proposal drew substantial opposition from some Sun Valley residents before construction began.
During the summer of 2025, residents and members of The Climate Corps Initiative (TCCI) protested at the Metrolink station and called on Councilmember Imelda Padilla to reconsider the project. Their concerns included the loss of commuter parking, public safety, sanitation and what they described as inadequate community outreach before the site was selected.
Metrolink told local media that the project was being developed independently by the City of Los Angeles and that train service at Sun Valley would not be affected. At the time, Metrolink reported an average of about 82 weekday passenger boardings at the station.
The controversy continued after the initial demonstrations, with residents raising questions about safety, transportation access and transparency at community meetings and in written comments to the City.
Despite the opposition, the project moved forward and opened in August 2026.
For contemporary coverage of the opposition, see the August 4, 2025 Los Angeles Daily News report and San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol coverage.
What Was Here Before?
The present site spent 25 years as part of the Sun Valley Metrolink park-and-ride lot. The station opened on April 30, 2001.
Before Metrolink, the property was part of Sun Valley's long-established industrial corridor. Historical imagery shows commercial and industrial structures around the future station property rather than simply vacant land.
But an even more interesting chapter unfolded just a short distance away.
1947–1956: The Nearby Dureen Trailer Camp
The Densho Encyclopedia documents a Japanese American trailer community at 11087 Olinda Street, known variously as the Dureen, Roscoe and Sun Valley Trailer Camp.
The camp became especially important in November 1947 when Japanese American families were displaced from the Winona Trailer Camp in Burbank. George Wada and Nori Yonemura leased the five-acre Dureen property, which had space for about 115 trailers.
Many residents were rebuilding their lives after wartime incarceration while also confronting Southern California's severe postwar housing shortage and racial discrimination.
Dureen remained in operation until 1956.
The 1952 Aerial Clarifies the Geography
One important distinction is that Dureen was nearby, but it was not on the present Olinda Tiny Home Village property.
Densho places Dureen at 11087 Olinda Street, while today's city-owned Metrolink property is identified as 11080 Olinda Street / 8358 San Fernando Road.
The aerial makes the relationship much clearer than the similar addresses: the two sites were separate but part of the same immediate neighborhood.
Another Trailer Connection: Boles Aero
The site's later industrial history adds another unusual connection.
By the 1960s, 8358 San Fernando Road was associated with Boles Aero, a Southern California manufacturer known for its distinctive aluminum travel trailers.
Advertisements for Boles Aero listed the company's Sun Valley operation at the same 8358 San Fernando Road address later used for the Metrolink property.
The coincidence is striking: decades before tiny homes appeared here, the address itself was associated with the production of another form of compact mobile dwelling.
1947–1956: Japanese American families lived in trailers at nearby Dureen.
1960s–1980: Boles Aero manufactured travel trailers at 8358 San Fernando Road.
2026: Tiny homes provide interim housing at the Metrolink property.
A Full-Circle Moment, 70 Years Later
The circumstances of Dureen and Olinda were very different and should not be treated as historically equivalent.
Dureen residents were Japanese Americans rebuilding their lives after forced wartime removal and incarceration while facing housing discrimination. Today's Olinda residents are people experiencing homelessness entering through Los Angeles' shelter and housing-services system.
Yet the geographic echo is difficult to miss.
For both communities, the small dwellings served a basic purpose: a place of temporary stability while residents worked toward a more permanent home.
Between those two moments came factories, a travel-trailer manufacturer and a Metrolink commuter parking lot.
Few passengers passing through the Sun Valley station today would know the history, but this small stretch of Olinda Street has unexpectedly come full circle.
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Sources
- KADRE Architects — Sun Valley & Van Nuys Tiny Home Villages
- Densho Encyclopedia — Winona Trailer Camp and Dureen Trailer Camp
- Los Angeles Daily News — Sun Valley residents protest Tiny Home Village at Metrolink station, August 4, 2025
- San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol — Sun Valley community opposition to the Metrolink tiny-home project
- City of Los Angeles — Council File 23-1022-S35
- Hope the Mission
- Metrolink — Sun Valley Station
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