Sunshine Sober Living is a family-owned structured sober living residence at 5650 Donna Avenue in Tarzana, about five and a half miles east of Canoga Park. It houses men and women aged 21 and older who are committed to long-term recovery, and keeps them close to West Valley meetings, jobs, outpatient care and family.
Canoga Park runs on Sherman Way. The historic downtown between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and De Soto Avenue still holds the Madrid Theatre at 21622 Sherman Way, the old Owensmouth-era storefronts, panaderias, taquerias and auto trades. Roughly sixty-four percent of the district rents, and for someone finishing treatment the practical question is where the next stable address comes from. Sober living in Canoga Park is usually a conversation about exactly that.
Sunshine Sober Living has served the recovery community since 2019 and remains family-owned. Richard Goldberg founded the house with Wendy Goldberg, who directs admissions, and Elliot Leonard runs the program day to day. Two companion pages go deeper: the men’s house and how it runs and what women coming from this side of the Valley ask about.
Four Metro G Line stations sit on Canoga Avenue alone, at Sherman Way, Canoga, Roscoe and Nordhoff, which is why a resident from this district can keep a job without owning a car.
Sober living in Canoga Park means a shared, substance-free home with written house rules, a curfew, drug and alcohol testing, and housemates who notice when someone stops showing up for dinner. Sunshine Sober Living is recovery housing, not a medical program. It is not a detox, not a rehab and not an intensive outpatient clinic. Where a resident needs one of those levels of care, admissions refers out to licensed California facilities and Joint Commission-accredited providers, including supervised withdrawal management and residential rehabilitation.
The four dimensions SAMHSA uses to define recovery are health, home, purpose and community. Home is on that list by name rather than as an afterthought. That is the plain case for a bed on a residential street with a settled rhythm instead of a room found week to week on short notice. The address holds still while everything else in a person’s life is still moving, and that stillness is what makes a schedule possible.
This is where the district has a genuine advantage. Four Metro G Line stations sit on Canoga Avenue alone: Sherman Way in the old downtown, Canoga near Victory Boulevard, Roscoe and Nordhoff. No other West Valley neighborhood has that density. Add Line 162 along Sherman Way, Lines 164 and 165 on Victory Boulevard and Vanowen Street, Line 244 on De Soto Avenue and Line 150 on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, and a resident can hold a shift without owning a car. The trip between the two neighborhoods is short by any of them.
Warner Center sits immediately south and is the Valley’s largest office district. Westfield Topanga and the retail cluster around it are within a couple of miles. Los Angeles Pierce College is a G Line ride away at Pierce College station, and California State University Northridge is about six miles northeast. Keeping a paycheck and a class schedule intact through the first unstable months is most of what life after the house is built on.
Cabrito House at 7552 Remmet Avenue is listed as an AA meeting location by both the San Fernando Valley AA Central Office and the Los Angeles Central Office, and it is home to the Saturday Night Live meeting. Canoga Park Presbyterian Church at 22103 Vanowen Street carries the Sunday Surrender NA meeting on the San Fernando Valley NA west end list. Two addresses, two ends of a weekend, for someone trying to build a routine out of nothing.
Residents at the Tarzana house are expected to be in meetings, not merely near them. Which fellowship, which room and which home group is the resident’s own choice. Attendance is tracked the same way curfew and chores are tracked, because the daily structure only holds together if every part of it is actually checked rather than assumed.
The California Department of Health Care Services does not license, certify or investigate complaints against sober living or transitional living homes. What DHCS does license is any residence providing twenty-four-hour non-medical residential recovery or treatment services, with licensure triggered by detoxification, individual or group sessions, educational sessions or treatment planning. Sunshine Sober Living does none of those things. It provides housing, structure and peer accountability, and refers clinical work to licensed providers, including intensive outpatient care a resident attends elsewhere during the day.
That distinction matters when a family is comparing options over the phone. A sober living residence and a licensed treatment facility answer different questions. One supplies clinical services; the other supplies a stable, substance-free address and a set of expectations that still apply on a slow Tuesday afternoon. Most people leaving residential care need both, in sequence, and it is worth asking any operator plainly which of the two they are.
Mornings start early and the day has fixed anchors: chores, work or school, outpatient appointments where they apply, an evening meeting and a curfew. Residents cook, do laundry, keep their rooms and take a turn on shared responsibilities. Elliot Leonard, the program director, brings professional addiction-treatment experience, including previous work at Jaywalker Lodge. Nothing about the schedule is dramatic. Its value is that it stays the same on the days a person feels good and on the days they do not.
The regular fixtures of a week look like this:
The riskiest stretch is the first month after discharge. People leave residential treatment with a plan, move into an apartment alone, and discover the plan has nothing holding it up between nine at night and six in the morning. That pattern is common enough to have its own page here: the first thirty days after rehab. Someone already sober but living somewhere that quietly erodes it is an equally good fit.
Families ask a harder question, which is what to do when the person who needs the bed does not want it. Pushing rarely works. Naming a specific place, a specific street and a specific set of expectations sometimes does. What to do when someone refuses sober living takes that up at length, and admissions will talk it through by phone with no commitment attached.
The National Alliance for Recovery Residences sorts recovery residences into four levels, and knowing which one you are looking at prevents a lot of confusion.
| Level | What it provides | Who is on site |
|---|---|---|
| Level I | Peer-run housing, democratic rules, no paid staff in the home | The residents themselves |
| Level II | Monitored housing with rules, testing and daily oversight | A house manager |
| Level III | Supervised housing with structured programming added | Credentialed staff |
| Level IV | Clinical services delivered on site, closer to treatment | Licensed clinicians |
Sunshine Sober Living operates as structured recovery housing rather than a clinical setting, and coordinates the step down from residential care with licensed providers.
From Sherman Way at Topanga Canyon Boulevard, head east on Sherman Way about three miles to Tampa Avenue, south on Tampa Avenue to Burbank Boulevard, east on Burbank Boulevard, then north on Donna Avenue. The freeway alternative runs south on Topanga Canyon Boulevard to US-101 east and off at the Tampa Avenue exit. That is about 5.5 miles by surface streets, about 7 miles via US-101, roughly 15-22 minutes on surface streets, 13-20 minutes via the freeway.
Sunshine Sober LivingThe house is at 5650 Donna Avenue in Tarzana, roughly five and a half miles east of Canoga Park by surface streets and about seven miles by way of US-101. Surface streets usually take fifteen to twenty-two minutes and the freeway thirteen to twenty. Families making the trip for a first visit generally find Sherman Way across to Tampa Avenue the simplest way to go.
Yes. The residence serves men and women aged twenty-one and older, including people managing co-occurring conditions, who are committed to long-term recovery. Admissions handles each inquiry individually rather than by category, and local reviewers rate the house 4.7 out of 5. A confidential assessment by phone is the usual first step, and nothing has to be decided during that call.
No. Rehab is licensed clinical treatment. Sober living is housing with structure, rules and peer accountability, carrying no clinical program of its own. Many residents attend outpatient treatment elsewhere while living here, which is the ordinary arrangement rather than an exception. Admissions works with licensed California facilities and Joint Commission-accredited providers, and can arrange referrals for detox, residential rehabilitation and intensive outpatient care.
Working is expected rather than merely permitted. Residents hold jobs, attend classes or volunteer during the day, and the curfew includes a sign-out process for shifts that end late. People commuting back toward Warner Center, Westfield Topanga or Pierce College manage it by car, by carpool or on the Metro G Line most days of the week without difficulty.
Structure means the week carries fixed obligations: chores, testing, a curfew, house meetings and a requirement to be in work, school or treatment during daylight hours. It is the difference between a room in a quiet house and a set of expectations attached to that room. Residents keep their own doctors, therapists and employers while living inside that frame.
Sunshine Sober Living is structured sober living. It is not a hospital, a detox unit or a clinical program. Where someone needs medical or clinical care, our admissions team refers to licensed California providers and to Joint Commission-accredited facilities. Outcomes in recovery are individual and cannot be guaranteed. If you or someone you love needs immediate help, the SAMHSA National Helpline is free and confidential on 1-800-662-4357, 24 hours a day.
If Canoga Park is where your life is and Tarzana is where the next stable address needs to be, a phone call is the honest place to begin. Sober living near Canoga Park is a short drive rather than a relocation. Call 866-216-9789 to schedule a confidential assessment, or start with the intake form and admissions will come back to you.