Great Place but I will never stay there again even...

Great Place but I will never stay there again even if they did finally apologize. How cruel can you be? One day you might end up just as these individuals and praying for a warm place to say for just one nite.

Homeless people will be staying at the Hotel du Pont after all.

The hotel's cancellation of a reservation for a group of homeless people to stay there Christmas night, which became public Thursday, sparked outrage and outreach from another hotel's management.

Where Wilmington's most prominent lodging refused a $639 reservation for one room for one night, the general manager of a Stanton-area hotel is responding by offering 10 of them free for Thursday night.

And Thursday evening, Lisa Bolten, director of DuPont Hospitality, apologized for the misunderstanding and said the homeless people now have been invited to stay there this weekend without charge.

The Christmas night plan began with Newark-area residents Deb Bennett and her husband Matthew Scott Senge, who are co-founders of the gospel-focused Road to Redemption Ministries in Wilmington.

They wanted to do something special for Christmas for one particular group of homeless people in Wilmington, Bennett.

"I used to be one of them," she said, adding she lived with them under a city bridge for quite awhile after her house burned down in 2012. Initially, she thought of booking them rooms at the Fairview Inn on South Market Street just south of the city. But her husband suggested they splurge on the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington, where he explained their plan and reserved a room at the nightly rate of $639.

The couple then visited the homeless people including a family member of Bennett's and told them about the hotel room, she said.

"They were blown away," she said. "One woman, she cried."

But as the couple began to assemble gift baskets and food for the intended guests, a Hotel du Pont representative called Senge three hours before check-in and canceled the reservation.

The benefactors who say the Hotel du Pont should be ashamed say the man said, "What if one of these people rapes or robs one of our guests?"

They were shocked, Bennett said, adding she pressed the caller to explain just what he meant by "those people," but he had no answer.

"People who have their nice cars and 8-to-5 jobs and houses to go home to, they don't understand," Bennett said. "They don't realize that, at any given moment, they could become one of 'those people.' I know, because I did."

Du Pont representative Brendan McEvoy told The News Journal the reservation was declined under standard hospitality operating practice of requiring photo identification at check-in. He said Senge had told management, when making the reservation, that the homeless people they intended to house at the hotel did not have IDs.

McEvoy said he doesn't know if the hotel representative said what Senge and Bennett claim he did, but said the lack of IDs was conveyed to them as the reason for the refusal.

"Our primary concern is for the safety of all of our guests," he said.

If they do have ID as Senge said Thursday they do "they would be welcome," McEvoy said.

Meanwhile, what McEvoy said was "a misunderstanding," prompted a strong reaction at the Hilton Wilmington Christiana off Churchmans Road near Stanton.

General Manager Brad A. Wenger was distressed to learn about the Hotel du Pont's refusal, calling it "a very disturbing scar on the hospitality community."

He decided to offer 10 rooms at the hotel Thursday night for homeless people free.

Wenger was in contact Thursday afternoon with Code Purple shelter coordinators to make the arrangements, including an offer to pick up the guests with a hotel van.

Bennett called his offer "beautiful."