There was a career panhandler in a big midwestern city that would hold a cup at the same spot every day and say “Help the HomeLESS!” He’d been doing this for years – even decades. A fixture almost as much as the light post he leaned against. Turned out, he wasn’t truly homeless at all, and shared a rather expensive apartment with another career panhandler. When asked about the apparent hypocrisy, he said simply that he rented rather than owned, so he wasn’t really lying. The problem is this individual and his partner help to reinforce the impression that many if not most homeless were not in the dire straits they appear to be in. What is the divine perspective on this type of career?

This is clearly an example of someone taking advantage of the goodwill of others and their generosity and in the same action creating potential harm down the line for others who may not receive an act of charity when in desperate need because too many people they encounter have been burned by a kind of predatory panhandling situation that left them cynical and unwilling to be generous ever. So there will be multiple layers of negative karma resulting from taking advantage of the good intentions and compassionate feelings of others through a subterfuge of this kind, pretending to be in need when one is not. This will certainly have negative consequences down the line. They will not get away with this act of dishonest representation. They will pay a price. The people they fool into donating money may be harmed in the sense of giving away something of value to a person who is unworthy and simply wanting to exploit them, but they will nonetheless gain good karmic consequences because their act of generosity will be on record and will come back to them with a reward of some kind in the future.