This story makes me wonder whether strays have turned up at her home and she has fed them and they have stayed. It is easy to be judgemental with this case and not know all the facts. When I was fostering for CP and must hasten to add had no outdoor pens I would quite often with my own cats have a total of 20 cats in my home, so that was 7 cats of my own and 13 CP cats and kittens in the house. Mine were mainly elderly, had a medical or a behaviour problem such as aggressive through the way they had been treated or being young kittens from a feral colony. They mainly came to me until they could be tamed down if feral, the elderly and ill would be forgotten about and the food, vet bills and cat litter supplied, when I say forgotten about they never actively looked for homes for them.
As to her seeing some of the cats born I would say that she maybe had a pregnant female turn up and could have been something like the Roxy situation in another thread.
With out the full facts it is so easy to judge a person and at least all the cats are being fed being it on shops own brand or not. Suppose I am also one with low standards as my food bill for the cats alone for food not including cat litter or food for my dogs comes to £31 a week, as some of my cats won't eat certain types of food.
Example have one that will only eat As good as it looks or Simply, another that will only eat Whiskas supermeat others that look disgusted if you feed supermeat to them and will only eat chunks in jelly or gravy.
I think if the lady has difficult coping to feed them all the council should assist in trying to find them suitable homes with rescues (work with rescues to try and find them forever homes) and move them from the lady as and when a home is found and also assist with getting the ones neutered that are not when they are old enough to make sure that they don't continue to breed.
I think there is a lot more to this story than is actually being told.