Octavio Estevez, Homeless Dad Kept Off Organ Waiting List, Gets New Apartment

Huffington Post

A homeless dad who was told that he couldn't get a kidney transplant because he was homeless, got the keys to a new Manhattan home Saturday, CBS reports.

Octavio Estevez, 54, suffered strokes in 2006 that kept him from working as a tailor, according toNYDailyNews.com. The Dominican-born U.S. citizen landed in a Bronx homeless shelter and was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease two years ago. He needed a kidney transplant to save his life.

But, because the father of two was living in a shelter, Mount Sinai Medical Center kept him off its kidney transplant waiting list.

"If being poor is bad, being poor and ill is a tragedy," Estevez told VoicesofNY.org.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/25/octavio-estevez-homeless-_n_1169395.html