Sunshine Sober Living is a family-owned structured sober living residence at 5650 Donna Avenue in Tarzana, a straight run south from Reseda on Reseda Boulevard. The house serves men and women aged 21 and older, including people with co-occurring conditions, who want a substance-free address and daily accountability while they rebuild work, school and family life.
Reseda sits directly north of the house. Victory Boulevard forms the neighborhood’s southern boundary and also the Tarzana line, so a resident moving down from the Sherman Way corridor never leaves the west San Fernando Valley. Families ask two things first: what the drive down Reseda Boulevard involves, and what the daily routine asks of them.
Sunshine Sober Living has served the recovery community since 2019 and remains family-owned. Richard Goldberg and Wendy Goldberg founded it, and Elliot Leonard directs the program. Men and women both live in structured recovery housing here, and the day-to-day differs enough that men’s sober living in Reseda and the women’s side each have their own page.
Reseda station on the Metro G Line, at Reseda Boulevard just south of Victory Boulevard, is roughly a mile and a half from the house, which makes this the one area where a resident can keep a Reseda job without a car.
Structured sober living is housing plus a routine. Residents live in a substance-free home, keep a curfew, take part in testing, share the chores, attend recovery meetings and check in with staff. Treatment itself does not happen here. People work, take classes or attend an outpatient program during the day, then return to an address where drinking and using are not part of the environment.
The house is not a lockdown and it is not a hospital. Residents come and go for work and appointments. What holds is the frame around them: expectations explained on day one, a house manager who notices, and consequences nobody has to guess at. Families searching for housing after rehab often find this middle step is the one the discharge plan skipped.
Sunshine Sober Living accepts adults 21 and older committed to long-term recovery, including people managing co-occurring mental health conditions. Someone still in withdrawal needs medically supervised detox before anything else, and someone who has never had structured treatment may need a residential program first. Admissions works with licensed California facilities and Joint Commission-accredited facilities and can arrange those referrals.
Plenty of residents move in while still attending outpatient care several days a week. Recovery housing and clinical treatment are built to run alongside each other: the licensed provider handles therapy and medication questions, and the house handles the address, the routine and the accountability that fill the other twenty hours of the day.
The fit is usually right when a person can say yes to most of this:
Meeting life here runs through the Sherman Way and Reseda Boulevard corridor. The Storefront at 17751 Sherman Way is listed by the San Fernando Valley AA Central Office and the Los Angeles Central Office as the venue for the Wake Up book study and step study meetings. Residents from the 91335 ZIP code often keep going back to rooms where people know their first name, and the program encourages that.
The neighborhood around those rooms has changed. The city has put more than $100 million into the Reseda Rising program, including a $21 million rebuild of Reseda Boulevard finished in March 2024 carrying the longest stretch of protected bike lanes in Southern California. Reseda Park and Recreation Center at 18411 Victory Boulevard and the West Valley Regional Branch Library on Vanowen Street cost nothing to visit.
This is the one area we serve where a resident can realistically keep a Reseda job or family connection without owning a car. Reseda station on the Metro G Line sits at Reseda Boulevard just south of Victory Boulevard, roughly a mile and a half from Donna Avenue. Metro Line 240 runs Reseda and Ventura Boulevards and passes closest to the house, putting California State University Northridge four miles north on one bus.
Los Angeles Pierce College sits about four miles southwest for anyone restarting community college. A resident working the Reseda Boulevard commercial corridor, or at Northridge Hospital Medical Center on Roscoe Boulevard, can hold those hours from here. Families weighing neighborhoods sometimes compare this with the Northridge area, though the Reseda run is the shorter one.
None of it is punishment. It is scaffolding while sleep, appetite and attention come back, and most residents stop noticing the rules in the second month because the rules have become the shape of the day. Elliot Leonard, the program director, brings professional addiction-treatment experience including previous work at Jaywalker Lodge. By week six the conversation usually turns toward what life after the house looks like.
A normal week at the house includes:
SAMHSA’s 2023 recovery housing guidance is direct about this. Recovery housing works best when it is recovery-centred, run on social model principles, free of patient brokering, and paired with evidence-based outpatient treatment. That guidance cites research in which recovery housing residents had substance use rates of 31.3 per cent against 64.8 per cent in a usual-care comparison group.
SAMHSA also defines recovery as a process supported by four dimensions: health, home, purpose and community. Home is the dimension a discharge plan most often leaves blank, and it is the one that makes the other three possible. A steady, substance-free address in the west San Fernando Valley is frequently the piece that decides whether the rest of the plan survives its first month.
The National Alliance for Recovery Residences sorts recovery housing into four levels, and knowing which one you are looking at prevents most misunderstandings.
| Level | What it looks like | Who it tends to fit |
|---|---|---|
| Level I | Peer-run, no paid staff, democratic house rules | People with recovery time already banked |
| Level II | Monitored, with a house manager and set expectations | People stepping down from residential care |
| Level III | Supervised, adding programming and credentialed staff | People needing daily oversight |
| Level IV | Clinical services delivered by a licensed provider | People who still need treatment, not housing |
Sunshine Sober Living is structured recovery housing, not a licensed clinical facility.
From Sherman Way at Reseda Boulevard, head straight south on Reseda Boulevard about two miles – crossing Vanowen Street, Victory Boulevard (the Tarzana line) and Oxnard Street – to Burbank Boulevard, then west on Burbank Boulevard and north on Donna Avenue. Tampa Avenue south to Burbank Boulevard then east is a useful alternative when Reseda Boulevard is backed up. That is about 2.5 to 3 miles, roughly 8-14 minutes in normal traffic – the shortest run of any area we serve.
Sunshine Sober LivingNo. The house is at 5650 Donna Avenue in Tarzana, just north of Burbank Boulevard between Wilbur Avenue and Vanalden Avenue. Victory Boulevard is the line between the two neighborhoods, so the address sits a short drive south of Reseda, close enough for a resident to keep 91335 jobs and family visits.
Meeting attendance is part of the structure at Sunshine Sober Living, and residents keep a schedule instead of going when they feel like it. Which rooms they choose is their own decision. The Sherman Way corridor carries options, and steady contact with other sober people is not optional here.
Yes, and most residents do. Sober living in Reseda works precisely because people keep work, school and outpatient appointments. California State University Northridge is about four miles north on Metro Line 240, and Los Angeles Pierce College is roughly four miles southwest by car or bus.
Verification is available through the Verify Insurance page on this site, and admissions will walk a family through it by phone at 866-216-9789. Plans differ enormously, and nobody can promise what a particular policy will pay toward housing or treatment. Admissions can check and explain plainly what came back.
Families stay in the picture. Residents keep contact with parents, partners and children, and part of the point of a Valley address is that a mother in Reseda can remain in her daughter’s life without booking a flight. Wendy Goldberg, Founder and Director of Admissions, usually takes that first call.
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.
Reseda is a few minutes north of Donna Avenue, and the first step toward sober living in Reseda is a conversation rather than a commitment. Call 866-216-9789 or email info@sunshinesoberliving.com to schedule a confidential assessment. If writing is easier than talking, start with the intake form and admissions will call back.