Santa Claus disguised as 'homeless' panhandler pays month's rent for stranger

A great act of kindness and generosity came from a very unlikely source for Yogi Omar on Wednesday night.

The Vancouverite and activist do-gooder was depositing money at a downtown Vancity Bank when he encountered a ‘homeless’ man standing right outside on the street corner.

Yogi offered to help the man who was dressed as a homeless person and asking passersby for change. The two men struck a conversation, and Yogi shared a story about how his father was suffering from stage 3 bone cancer with merely weeks to live after previously surviving stage 4 lung cancer.

He has been trying to get his finances together over the past couple of weeks to fly to Guangzhou, China and visit his father one last time.

Speaking to Vancity Buzz, “there has been a lot of unexpected expenses and it was putting a big stress on me financially. Just the day before, when I got my visa and flight tickets, I posted on Facebook ‘Well, there goes most of my savings. Plane tickets bought. Dec 26 – Jan 3. China, here I come!'”

It was at that point of the conversation that the ‘homeless’ man revealed that he was not homeless. Yogi was shocked, but the man continued and asked him how much his rent was.

He jokingly told him $469, but before he could realize that this was actually happening the ‘homeless’ man pulled out $469 in exact cash from his pocket.

“I’m never one to worry too much about money because I know everything will always work out, and voila,” said Yogi. It was made possible by a very wealthy ‘Santa Claus’ disguised as a ‘homeless’ panhandler.

This is not the first time the anonymous man has disguised himself as a homeless panhandler to perform random acts of kindness. Every Christmas season, his family rewards strangers who approach the homeless and offer them help.

“Well, if you don’t believe in Karma, you should now. You NEVER know what’s going to happen in this life,” said Yogi on his Facebook post made immediately after the encounter. “Be kind to one another.”