Casa Familiar: “Bringing Services to the Boulevard”

Casa Familiar is a non-profit community development organization based in San Ysidro. Founded in 1973, Casa Familiar has worked alongside community leaders throughout the South Bay and border region to organize and empower residents around sustainability and quality of life issues affecting their region.

Casa Familiar is always looking for new ways to grow and expand their services to more residents. As a means of facilitating this, Casa Familiar has recently acquired several properties along W San Ysidro Blvd that will contain a combination of commercial and mixed-use developments.

Lisa Cuestas, CEO of Casa Familiar, anticipates that the removal of parking minimums will make the expansion process easier. Lisa tells us that “under the proposed parking reform, we can provide more services to our community on the Boulevard”. Casa Familiar currently provides residents some of the most affordable legal & immigration services in the region, and expanding them would help further address a crucial community need in the border region.

Lisa also believes that the upcoming reform will help Casa Familiar “create more jobs for youth by expanding [Casa Familiar’s] social enterprises.” El K-FE is Casa Familiar’s social enterprise, consisting of a youth-run coffee cart that helps create sustainable employment opportunities for San Ysidro youth. 

El-K-FE is currently situated in the courtyard of the San Ysidro Health Center. The new parking reform would allow Casa Familiar to open another coffee cart on one of its new properties without the physical and financial barriers imposed by parking minimum requirements, as well as create further workforce development and community-building opportunities for San Ysidro youth.

Lastly, because Casa Familiar’s new properties’ are situated between two major Trolley stops, residents along the Boulevard will also be able to access services without relying on single occupancy vehicles. Whether having residents grab a cup of coffee or access legal help, the removal of parking minimums presents exciting opportunities for Casa Familiar and the local community.