Homeless Man Returns $10,000 Check, Finds Himself Blessed

A homeless man in New Haven, Connecticut says he just wanted to "do the right thing" when he found and returned a $10,000 check to its owner.

Real estate agent Roberta Hoskie lost the check made out to her while running errands. In a Facebook live video posted Nov. 8, she explained "she had a lot of things in her hand and didn't even know she lost the check."

"I don't care what you say. There are so many really good people in this world," Hoskie said. 

She said she received a phone call from Elmer Alvarez and he told her that he found the check before she even realized she had lost it.  

"There are good people out there," Hoskie said. 

She also realized her telephone number wasn't on the check.  Alvarez had to Google the name of her firm in order to contact her.

Hoskie and a couple of her friends went to meet Alvarez on a nearby street corner and he gave her the check.  She thanked him, calling him a "Good Samaritan" and thanking God for him. During their conversation, she found out he was homeless.

She told him to stay at the corner and she was going to write him a check as a reward. The video also shows Hoskie and friends later going back to the corner give Alvarez a check for an undisclosed amount.

As she gave him the reward, the man began to cry.  

"Don't cry honey, you did the right thing," Hoskie told him. "I don't even know who you are, but I thank God for you.  I don't care what your situation is, God has his hand all over your life.  And whatever you are going through is temporary."

"You continue to do the right thing. I can help you. I was homeless. I'm going to teach you how to fish. Never underestimate the power of God," she said.

Before becoming a real estate agent and owning several businesses in New Haven, Hoskie was living in a local shelter.

Alvarez says he's now working on getting a job and getting his life back together.  

"First of all, I believe in God," Alvarez told The New Haven Register. "My faith is what keeps me going through. ... I always believe that once you do right, right always comes back to you. Because God don't like ugly."

Hoskie is offering Alvarez free classes at her real estate school. 

"I know it sounds so cliché, but you cannot judge a book by its cover," Hoskie said.  "There needs to be more people like Elmer.

Watch Hoskie's Facebook video below to see Alvarez give her back the check and to see how he's blessed in return.