Help me help Dad

Hi, my name is Debbie M. and i'm fundraising for my dad.

Although I live stateside in the tristate area i've always made it my duty to visit my father at least twice a year in Puerto Rico. In recent years my father, more or so after Hurricane Maria, stopped allowing us to enter his home. Instead he would always come downstairs to meet us in the front of the home. Due to my heavy work schedule I had to take a step-back from my usual trips. That was until just last week.

I've had a heavy feeling in my heart this whole year and knew I had to make the time to see my dad. Upon reaching the house, which has been in our family for over 70 years, I noticed that there was an immense amount of trash leading up to his entrance. Since the gate was open, I decided to let myself in to really find out what was going on. I was shocked to find that the door to his house was on a hinge, with the bottom lock popped out. As I entered the home I was greeted with a tremendous amount of trash, mostly water damaged items and my grandfathers trophies and pictures on the floor. As we made our way through each room we were met with more trash, rats, water damage, literal holes in the walls and filthy mattresses.

A nearby neighbor saw me clearly shaken in front of the home and informed me of my fathers poor mental health. She informed me that in recent months he had been attacked and that people had basically let themselves onto the property to use drugs etc.

When asked why he never asked for help, he simply replied "I didn't want to bother anyone". When asked why he never told anyone about the hurricane damage, his response was "I didn't know how to fill out the paperwork". When asked who attacked him, he lied.

My father is the son of a legendary boxing legend, Pedro Montañez. Unfortunately, my father has always suffered from mental health issues and wasn't really able to be that strong father figure in my life and ended up leaving the states back home to Puerto Rico when I was very young. I've made it my duty to try to build a bond with him since losing my mother and becoming an adult.

My goal is to raise enough funds to...

I'm sure there's much more I could add to this list but this is just the start. I just want to know that my father has a clean and safe place to sleep and that the house that my grandfather worked soo hard for doesn't deterioate in this way.