Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired has been providing services in the local community since 1936, first as the Palo Alto Society for the Blind, and later as Peninsula Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired (PCBVI).  In 2003, the Doran Center for the Blind in Santa Cruz, founded in 1979 with a similar mission to that of PCBVI, became a subsidiary of PCBVI.

Sharing staff and programs, as well as board members, proved to be a positive and invigorating change for both agencies.  Both changed their names in 2005 -- to Vista Center for the Blind & Visually Impaired (Vista Center), and Vista Center for the Blind & Visually Impaired, Santa Cruz. That relationship remained in effect until 2007, when the two entities consolidated into a single corporate Vista Center, maintaining two facilities, one in Palo Alto and one in Santa Cruz.