PHOENIX — For one Valley man, COVID-19 has taken nearly everything. He has lost multiple family members, his business, and now mounting medical bills are threatening to cost him his home.
The last several months have weighed heavily on Ricardo Aguirre.
“I am tired I still have days where I wake up and I feel tired,” says Aguirre.
Since the pandemic started, he says several members of his family have died from COVID-19. Including his father, and Aguirre himself battled the virus.
“I gotta be strong. Every day I wake up, I ask God just give me the strength to get by another day,” says Aguirre.
With each day came new-found stress. When coronavirus shut things down, their successful food truck and family catering business shut down too, and he had to return customer deposits.
“I was able to pay some of them, some of them I just ran out of money,” says Aguirre.
He had no way to keep the business going and no health insurance. Then, the medical bills came. Aguirre showed us bills exceeding $1 million dollars.
He has started a GoFundMe page as a last resort. People have donated over $100,000 far, but he says even that is just a drop in the bucket.
“There’s still a lot of bills. I haven’t paid my mortgage in four months,” says Aguirre.
Now he is facing foreclosure. He says he is fighting to stay strong, for the sake of his family, and his child that is on the way.
