I was going for a specific common situation, a family member who is mooching. I didn't mean that all recipients of charity are deadbeats. Obviously, that's going to depend on the individuals in question.

This is a "teach/give fish" issue here. If you give people stuff they don't scarequotes earn unscarequotes then they have, in a way, earned it. I mean, value judgement aside they have it now, right? They were miserable enough in front of you that they got it off you. Good on em. Mad beggar skills.

But that's just on a personal level. If you expand that, and you aren't just a dude who is a soft touch, but actually build an organization on the principle of "see cry, give hanky", then your charity is vulnerable to a free rider attack. You gotta fix that, if you actually want to do good and not just create a client group.

If you've ever seen the situation of "it would actually be bad for me to get a job because I'd lose X benefit" you get what I'm talking about here. It is a real problem, and the fact that it takes a hard heart to look at it doesn't make it less real. You have to solve the free rider problem if you want to do charity well, like you have to solve the impostor problem if you want to do encryption.