PHILADELPHIA PA – Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA) had the following letter-to-the-editor published in the Philadelphia Daily News on October 18, 2007, in response to an Op-Ed column by Mark Alan Hughes three days earlier declaring that, in Philadelphia, “Some of our problems are just unfixable.”

The Congressman responded:

"I applaud Mark Alan Hughes for focusing on the compelling challenges we face in Philadelphia. I only wish he'd made the acquaintance of Dr. Ala Stanford Frey at Temple University before declaring in his Oct. 15 op-ed that poverty in Philadelphia is not fixable.

“Dr. Frey was born to a teenage single mom in North Philadelphia. She applied herself and went on to medical school after participating in the Fattah Higher Education Conference, which has affected more than 10,000 disadvantaged young people.

“Her hard work paid off, and she became the nation's first African-American female pediatric surgeon entirely trained in the U.S. Now she's at Temple medical school as a program director and surgeon, saving the lives of young children from her old neighborhood.

“Dr. Frey's journey - only a few blocks, yet representing light years - offers a road map for interrupting the cycle of poverty and helping our children break out of the most difficult of circumstances. Philadelphia's forward movement as a world-class city will depend on our ability and will to improve the educational opportunities and life chances of all our citizens.

“We're starting to make it happen.

In Washington, we're proposing to strengthen the already-successful GEAR-UP so that its college-empowering programs will reach even more poor children. I was honored to co-chair Speaker Pelosi's National Summit on America's Children in May, where we showcased health, education, nutrition and other initiatives to rescue the very young from the cycle of poverty. In Philadelphia, we're building a permanent endowment for the CORE Philly scholarship program I developed to help all our low-income, underrepresented high school graduates find their way into college.

“Mark Hughes and I agree that poverty tops the list of urban priorities, but I can't share his pessimism. Make no mistake: denting poverty in our city and our nation is a vast and difficult undertaking. Our system is broken, Mark, but it is NOT unfixable. Dr. Frey is exceptional, but she represents the potential of countless young people written off by that system. Clearly, that calls for at least a bit of optimism, don't you think?

“Chaka Fattah, Member of Congress"