One of the most difficult parts of doing charity work is that you know you can’t help everyone in need.

What happens if a person who you choose not to help because they don’t meet the criteria of your charity gets upset about it?

That is what the man in this story is dealing with and he wants to make sure he is not doing anything wrong.

Take a look.

AITA for denying help for a lady I know.

I am part of a nonprofit charity organization that helps people to fix their homes.

When I was a kid I liked the TV show “Extreme Makeover – Home Edition” and as an adult, when I had enough resources I decided to do something similar myself, but without cameras, rushing and fake, reactions.

That is very generous.

As I own a construction company, the main part I provide is leftovers from building sites, but we also have multiple other members who contribute their time, money, or resources.

Our main focus is people who need better living standards, like hot water, and a bathroom with running water, or just heating as things like that can be too expensive for single parents, disabled people, or seniors.

Often we help families whose home was damaged in an accident (fire, flood, etc) and they lack resources to fix it. (Insurance companies often don’t cover old buildings in bad shape, but people in need often live in buildings like that)

What happened?

One day our organization received an email about a fire in an apartment building and the name of the person in need was familiar.

It was the best friend of my ex, let’s call her “Ruby”.

How awful.

So, I wrote to her and found out that a robot vacuum cleaner exploded in her apartment and started a fire.

The whole apartment needs rebuilding, as like many newer apartment buildings, the walls inside the apartment are mostly drywall and fire and extinguishing after it destroyed pretty much everything inside.

For whatever reason she had no insurance.

The neighbor downstairs whose home was flooded had insurance, the neighbor upstairs whose home had smoke damage had insurance, and even the building itself had insurance, so the facade and windows will get replaced, but the building insurance does not cover anything inside the apartment.

At first, it sounded like a great candidate for help, but I know Ruby.

I know that she owns another apartment she inherited and rents out!

She has ways to help herself.

So, I asked about that – “Couldn’t you sell it? Move there?” she replied, “I don’t want to lose my passive income!”

I replied, “Sorry, but we help people who have nothing, we help people who have no passive income that could be used for resolving the problems.”

All members can call for veto when the reason is good, as people sometimes try to scam us, and even though she is not scamming us, I believe she is not the target group of people who need charity.

Members rarely question the reasons, as the list of people that need help is long.

And this was when the crap storm started.

Sounds pretty entitled.

My ex called me and blamed me that I denied her friend help because of our history, my mailbox is flooded with people who call me an ******* for denying help to people in need, someone even wrote that “You are playing god”.

Is it wrong to deny charity to a person who could just sell her another real estate, move there, or even rent with money she makes from renting out that other place?

AITA?

She doesn’t meet the criteria for the charity, seems pretty straightforward to me.

Let’s see what the people in the comments think.

Yeah, this lady has plenty of options.

This is the right way to handle it.

Nice and simple.

Yup, use some of that passive income.

Honestly, he’s not obligated to help anyone!

Why do some people feel so entitled?

It’s appalling.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.