EXOD706 If someone needs money, but would be ashamed to receive charity, then find a way to coax her into taking the money as a gift or, if that would also embarrass her, as a loan Ketubot 67b. [While today we think of charity primarily in terms of donations, the Bible--perhaps because it was written at a time when few people had large amounts of money that could be given away--primarily associates charity with interest-free loans. See for example, this verse.] The psychological advantage of a loan-- particularly to someone who used to have money--is obvious: "a dole demeans by the very fact that the recipient is on a level subordinate to that of the donor but, in the case of the loan, both parties are deemed equal" (Byron Sherwin, Jewish Ethics for the Twenty-First Century, 146). Such a loan should, of course, be interest-free.