She bought a second property to profit off the family. She saw the opportunity to be seen as a saint while having this family pay for the mortage payment on her second home.

She thinks she isn’t a “wildly wealthy woman” but if you can buy a second house you absolutely are. Doesn’t matter whether she took a mortgage on it or not, she had enough assets that the bank thought they were getting a good deal there. Given her age and the risk of the loan, probably pretty substantial assets. Just because her definition of “wildly wealthy” probably means “able to buy a house in pocket cash” doesn’t mean she isn’t wealthy.

This isn’t a great kindness, unless the article is being extremely misleading with the terms they are using. Which to be fair, BBC, totally possible. Do you write thank you letters to your landlord for the great kindness they are doing by deigning to let you live there?

Maybe she isn’t actually charging them anything and the article is being misleading about the term rent, but assuming we take it at face value, this isn’t a great kindness.