The millionaire who gives away houses

Marco Robinson grew up sleeping in parks, but now he's a property developer with an empire worth $40 million.

It's a true rags to riches tale. As a child Mr Robinson's bed was a park bench and he went to about 20 different schools as he moved around the UK with his mother.

"I was bullied every day, lots of different things happened to me," he told news.com.au.

"My dad left when I was two, he was a gambler and had debt all over town.

"He couldn't get out of it, mum had to leave but had nowhere to go.

"Her family turned her away. Her stepfather was not nice to her and kicked us out. We had to live in parks all over the country, it wasn't pleasant."

When he was 16, he dropped out of school and had four different jobs, stacking shelves in supermarkets and cleaning floors.

"It felt like the right thing to do. My mum didn't have any money or help. It was the most important thing I had to do," he said.

"I had no other choice. The only way you can survive in this world is by having money to pay for things. I learnt that quickly and developed a work ethic early on."

When he reached his 20s he got a job in sales and was making enough money to live.

He said he had an "immense fire" within himself to work so he could look after his mother.

In 2008 all he had was a 20-year-old car, an old laptop and a broken marriage, but he wrote a book about how he started to climb the corporate ladder.

The next year he came up with an idea that made him $12 million - he developed a travel rewards incentive scheme for employees at big companies like BMW and Citibank.

He then created the luxury brand Naked Group, which includes companies like the award-winning Naked Restaurant & Bar and Naked beauty bars.

He now owns 100 different properties and is a property developer and self-made millionaire many times over.

But despite Mr Richards' success, he has never forgotten his struggles.

This week he gave away three fully furnished houses in the UK to struggling families.
He's funded the entire mortgage and will continue to pay the utility bills.

He appeared on Channel 4's program, Get A House For Free, where he put a roof over the head of a teen mum, a Syrian family and a blind woman.

The mother, Holly, was living in a mouldy flat with no carpet and a concrete floor.

The Syrian family was homeless and sleeping on the floor of a church or under a bridge.

"When you struggle before success, money doesn't mean as much and you give it back. I could give a home to somebody who didn't have one and it was very profound," he said.

"The reaction was extremely emotional.

"It's the most amazing feeling I've had in my life. To be able to give something that changes someone's life - it's just very emotional.

"To make a difference like that it beats anything else."

Mr Richards gave away houses because he was aware of the disastrous social housing issues.

"I think it's a global crisis. In Australia it's getting worse," he said.

"The reason there's a crisis is because the bank and government are not managing it properly. They're not building enough social and affordable housing and banks are not helping in terms of giving the right loans for people to pay off affordably to keep living in a nice house.

"The government doesn't step in and regulate it. Banks are in charge and it's a mess right now."

Mr Richards hopes his actions inspire other rich people to give to the poor.
"I think they're not doing it because they're not aware of the issues, especially with housing," he said.

"The people I gifted the homes to are perfectly educated people who had no other choice than to live on the street.

"A lot of people give money to charity but you don't see where it goes - I've never been into charities, you hear a lot of horror stories about the money not getting to the right people.

"I want to meet people and spend time with them and make sure the gift gets to the right person.

"Because people can actually see I'm giving the house away and changing people's lives because of it, it's a lot more inspiring and people would feel a lot better doing it."

Mr Richards originally planned to give away one home, but 8000 people applied and he found it impossible to choose.

"That's why I gave away three instead of one, it was impossible, I couldn't do it," he said.

"The final three were in such bad conditions, I couldn't just give away one, I had to help all of them.

"Their situations were no fault of their own, they were hardworking people and had a lot of gifts within them. I knew if they had some help they could get to a better place."

Since being given the house, Holly has gone to university and is working towards a career in journalism.

The Syrians are now living in their own place and applying for asylum. The father has a PhD and the son, a degree in accounting.

Mr Richards is now setting up his own foundation, Home Giver, to continue giving houses to struggling families. He plans to take donations from people and build a team to take the organisation global.

- news.com.au