East Hollywood residents clash over planned 51-unit tiny home village

East Hollywood neighbors are fighting over whether a planned 51-unit tiny home village will make Sierra Vista Avenue safer or reopen old wounds about crime, communication and trust. Residents said they did not learn the city was moving ahead until Mayor Karen Bass and officials held a groundbreaking ceremony on May 15 at Sierra Vista Avenue and Oxford Avenue.

That dispute is now as much about process as policy. Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez’s office said staff door-knocked more than 700 homes and held dozens of conversations about the project, and officials said about 80% of the people they spoke with wanted the village there. But neighbors opposing the site said they felt blindsided, especially after years of encampment activity on the block that they said brought hostile behavior, break-ins, vandalized cars and motorcycles, and people camping with solar panels and electricity.

The memory of the earlier encampment still hangs over the site. Residents said the area had only recently improved after Bass’ Inside Safe program cleared a former encampment there in August 2025, removing about 20 homeless people from Sierra Vista Avenue after sustained complaints. For some neighbors, the new village feels less like a solution than a return to the same stretch of sidewalk and the same fear that the neighborhood will again absorb the costs of a city homelessness response.

City officials are pitching the project differently. Bass said the village will include security, and the city is framing the site as interim housing meant to move people off the street and into services. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority says tiny home villages are designed as interim housing with required services, and its FY23-24 performance data showed 45% more people moved from the street to permanent housing, 32% more from the street to interim housing, and 29% more from interim housing to permanent housing.

Los Angeles has already built out a playbook for these villages. Alexandria Park in North Hollywood opened in 2021 with 103 units and up to 200 beds, at a reported cost of $43,000 per bed, or $8.6 million total, with three meals a day, showers, bathrooms, laundry and counseling services. Arroyo Seco in Highland Park opened later that year with 117 units and 224 non-congregate beds, finished in 90 days at about $55,000 per home.

The East Hollywood project is expected to open early next year. For neighbors who say they were left in the dark, the real test now is whether the city can prove this village will be different from the encampment that came before it.