Housing fund can help more than 700 families

In Monday’s PG, reporter Adam Smeltz quotes Mayor Bill Peduto voicing support for funding the Housing Opportunity Fund passed last year by city council (“Peduto Budget Gains Initial Approval,” Oct. 23). This fund, designed to both preserve existing affordable housing and support creation of new affordable rental and ownership opportunities, needs at least $10 million per year to begin to protect low- and moderate-income families from being further driven out of our city.

The fund was the No. 1 recommendation from the Affordable Housing Task Force established by the mayor two years ago. More than 14,000 voters from every precinct and ward in the city signed a petition last year calling for a small increase in the realty transfer tax. Hundreds of city residents from every part of our city have testified, called and written letters to council asking for their leadership to enact and fund the HousingOpportunity Fund.

We applaud the mayor’s continued support for funding the fund. City Controller Michael Lamb should be similarly supportive of finding money in the budget for this critical need or supportpassing the tax increase.

People across the city are calling for this fund because it will help more than 700 families per year find or maintain affordable homes in neighborhoods across the city. This won’t end our housing crisis, but it’s a critical first step.

City council must now do its job to protect the residents of our cityand enact the funding in this year’s budget process. Our communitiescan’t wait any longer. BARNEY OURSLER Executive Director Pittsburgh United

North Side Trump. He suggests that the wife of a fallen soldier is lying about his insensitive phone call to her. He made her cry and, with all the maturity of a 6-yearold, made fun of a congresswoman who verified the insensitivity of his phone call. That’s all in a day’s work.

The man who insults a Gold Star wife is the same one who claims that NFL players who kneel before a game to protest racial injustice are disrespectful to our flag.

No, Mr. President. This widow and the NFL players respect our flag, whether it is heartbreakingly draped over a coffin or flying high in a stadium. The real desecration of ourflag is you standing before it. ROBERT AIELLO

Whitehall

I am surprised that anyone who watched the Pittsburgh episode of Anthony Bourdain’s series “Parts Unknown” would have expected a sunny travelogue or picture postcard version of the city (“Jeez-o-Man, Bourdain’s Take on City Goes Over Like Hell With the Lid Off,” Oct. 24). At the very outset, Mr. Bourdain made it clear that his show was going to be an examination of gentrification in a city that had a spectacular industrial rise, a brutal post-industrial fall and is now in the process of becomingsomething different.

Gentrification is a controversial topic worldwide (although judging from their letters to the Post-Gazette, Pittsburghers appear to be blissfully oblivious of that fact). Mr. Bourdain’s show was an unsparing but sympathetic look at what used to be and is no longer, as well as what is now but soon may not be. He spoke with the young and old, black and white, those who have embraced and accelerated the recent changes in the city and those who question the unequal distribution of the benefits of those changes.

“Parts Unknown: Pittsburgh” was intelligent, edgy and compassionate, and those of us who care about the future of Pittsburgh and its surrounding region should be thankful that Anthony Bourdain put a spotlight on those issues. CHRISTOPHER DEVINE

Cranberry

Rock in peace, Fats Domino (“New Orleans Rock ’n’ Roll Pioneer,” Oct. 26 news obituary). I was under the age of 5 when Fats, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and others first came over the radio waves with a new style of music. I distinctly remember how absolutely fresh and exciting it sounded. That was when life began for me. Thanks, guys, I owe you much! GEOFF REIDELL Crafton