Manny Pacquiao knows what it’s like to have nothing. He once lived it.

Eating was never a given for Pacquiao while growing up with his dirt-poor family in the Sarangani Province in The Philippines. He quit school at the age of 10. Some days, he said, he only drank water because there was no food to be had. His family of seven lived in a cardboard shack. He left home at 15 and spent many a night on the mean streets of Manila, scrounging for food and shelter as he tried to make a career in boxing.

That is why, to this day, Pacquiao, now a senator and a future hall of fame fighter, the only eight-division champion in boxing history, gives back to the less fortunate. In his country, that includes just about everybody.

“I feel what they’re feeling because I’ve been there,” he told USA TODAY Sports a few years ago. “I’ve slept in the street. That was my life before. So hard. That’s why I feel what they’re feeling right now.”

His promoter, Bob Arum has talked about how people would line up by the thousands around his home in the Philippines as he gave away much of the millions he earned from his fights in the U.S.

“He sits in front of his house giving money away to people; they go for blocks,” Arum said back in 2010. “I’ve seen it. Food and money. Food and money. He believes that’s part of the higher purpose, because once he gives it away, he believes God will replenish it.”

Pacquiao, 37, who is fighting again on Nov. 5 against Jessie Vargas for the WBO welterweight championship in a pay-per-view event at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, is at it again. This time on a much larger scale.

His latest project is as big as the fighter’s heart: He will build 1,000 houses in the Sarangani Province for the homeless and less fortunate. The houses will cost nothing to the people who will live in them or to the taxpayers. It’s all coming out of Pacquiao’s pockets. He purchased the lots and built the houses and will give them away.

“In boxing the fight is in the ring is for the enjoyment of the fans,” he said Wednesday during a media workout in Los Angeles. “In the Senate, the fight is for improving the quality of life of the Philippine citizens. Being a senator is inspiring work.

“I have spent more than 100 million pesos (more than $2 million) on building houses for the less fortunate.”

For Pacquiao, who hasn’t knocked out an opponent in the ring since 2009, that is the biggest knockout punch imaginable.

(Photo of Pacquiao and Freddie Roach training at the Wild Card Boxing Club on Wednesday, by Mikey Williams, Top Rank)