Letters to the Editor | Sept. 5, 2023

Why shouldn’t Penn’s former president Amy Gutmann collect an almost no interest, $3.7 million home loan on top of a multimillion-dollar salary and a $23 million exit payout? We won’t mention two other large “loans” that the university told her to forget paying back. Of course she needed financial help with her “presidential transition” into, well, another lucrative life. Who can blame her? Isn’t this what made and continues to make our country? Get all you can get. She was aided and abetted by an elitist university board of trustees. As a Penn alum, I say, shameful. However, Penn doesn’t stand alone in the haves supporting the haves.

In a country that has denied loans, and therefore homeownership, disproportionately to Black and brown applicants; that tolerates homelessness and evictions at gunpoint; and which fuels rampant gentrification and displacement — this is not a good look. In fact, it is disrespectful. In Penn’s own backyard, there are workers at the university and hospital striving for a living wage, students struggling with loan debt, low-income residents being priced out by expansion, struggling public schools, etc., etc. Undeniably, Penn has contributed to its community. But good deeds and questionable ones can happen at the same time. Couldn’t that $3.7 million have been put to a more honorable use?

Shelley Dunham-McBride, Philadelphia

Far from providing an “opportunity for us all to reflect, build relationships, and act,” the creation of a reparations study task force — as proposed by Lucy Duncan in a recent op-ed — is the on-ramp to the road to hell, which is invariably paved with the good intentions of an ignorant few presumptuously speaking for the many. And far from manifesting a “city of brotherly love, sisterly affection, and kin-kindness,” such a task force will do nothing but provoke justifiable anger, foster resentment, and help fracture the tenuous bonds of civility already straining at the max to hold our fragile, multicultural society together. Suppose your great-great-grandfather (who you never met) murdered someone before you were even born. The victim’s great-great-grandson knocks on your door years later, shows you the newspaper clipping of the murder from 1905, and demands compensation from you, claiming it’s “reparations” and a “commitment to spiritual transformation.” What’s your response?

Richard F. Kosich, Conshohocken, rfk68@verizon.net

The recent article, “Philly is one of the worst big cities for aging in place,” reminds seniors like me that our lives may depend on the condition of our homes. Philly was ranked 96th in a list of America’s 100 largest cities due, in part, to poor housing conditions. This problem extends across the commonwealth: The homes of one in four Pennsylvania voters need critical repair. The 2022 Whole-Home Repairs Program, with initial funding of $125 million, was a first step to ensure that seniors and low-income families get some help with lifesaving repairs. But now a budget standoff in Harrisburg may delay $50 million of additional funding for the program until the legislature passes an “enabling code” outlining how the funds will be spent. This sounds to me like an easy fix. Our legislators must act now to get this money to the folks who sorely need it.

Nadine Young, Philadelphia

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