When a homeless guy spotted a check for $10,800 on a street corner, he chose to return it by calling the number on the back, and it changed his life. Elmer Alvarez had been a homeless man in New Haven.

After dealing with a heroin addiction, he became homeless and spent years in Connecticut. He was able to quit for good after struggling through that difficult period of addiction. Despite this, he continued to beg on the streets.

One day while strolling, he came across a check on the ground, and it was a check for $10,800. Rather decided to call the phone number on the back and return it to its owner, despite the fact that he had nothing.

The owner of the check Roberta quickly came to meet Elmer, and while she expected to find a fellow professional returning her check, it ended up being a homeless man.

After realizing that he was homeless, Roberta immediately offered him a reward, which caused Elmer to cry. “It shattered the stereotypes,” Roberta said, as a homeless man with nothing had returned such a large check to her.

Yet Roberta could relate to Elmer’s situation. She now runs a multi-million dollar business, but at one time in her life, she was a homeless single mother herself.

Roberta recalled a time when she was a teenage mom growing up in poverty, and when her and her child had nowhere to live, with only around $400 to her name. A kind person had helped her turn her life around,

and that act of kindness had helped turn her into the success she is today. She vowed that one day she wanted to pay it forward. Roberta assisted Elmer in finding an apartment and paid his rent for seven months while he recovered. She also enrolled him in her real estate school and appointed him to the board of directors