Overview and Mission

The mission of La Maestra Community Health Centers is to:  provide quality health care and education; to improve the overall wellbeing of the family; bringing the under-served, ethnically diverse communities into the mainstream of our society, through a caring, effective, culturally and linguistically competent manner, respecting the dignity of all patients.

As the name illustrates, La Maestra ("The Teacher") believes that the basis for any social change and effective healthcare outcome is education.

In 2010, La Maestra Community Health Centers celebrated twenty years of providing culturally and linguistically-competent prevention, treatment, chronic disease management and essential support services to 148,888 men, women and children in San Diego’s most culturally diverse and lowest income communities, through its six primary care medical clinic sites, five dental clinics, mental/behavioral health clinics and optometry clinic, including school-based medical and dental clinics at Hoover High School and a medical clinic at Central Elementary School.  Its main health center is located in City Heights, a community that is home to more than 90,000 residents, many of whom are recently settled refugees and immigrants from over 60 countries, with unique health and well-being needs. Additional health center locations include the underserved communities of El Cajon, National City and Lemon Grove, where the majority of patients are also refugees and immigrants who need affordable, quality health and social services.

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