Hotel du Pont apologizes, welcomes homeless guests

Sparked in part by a social media frenzy, two local hotels are allowing some homeless people to stay for free during the intense cold weather.

The episode began with the revelation, first reported by WDEL, that on Christmas night a group of six or seven homeless people had been refused a room at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington. The $639 room had been reserved and was to be paid for by a local couple hoping to help the less fortunate.

As of late Thursday, though, officials from the Hotel du Pont said they had reversed course, while the Hilton Wilmington Christiana said it would provide free lodging to the homeless, too.

The Christmas night plan began with Newark-area residents Deb Bennett and Matthew Scott Senge, who founded the gospel-focused Road to Redemption Ministries in Wilmington. They wanted to do something special for a particular group of homeless people in Wilmington, they said.

"I used to be one of them," Bennett said, adding she lived with them under a city bridge for quite awhile after her house burned down in 2012.

Senge, too, has had problems in life.

Before coming to Delaware, he had three felony fraud convictions for crimes including theft by deception and passing bogus checks. He served half of a 46-month prison sentence in Alabama and was also convicted in Florida and Pennsylvania.

After getting out of prison in 2012, "I turned my life around," Senge said Thursday night. He largely credits Bennett – whom he calls "my better half" – for his new life.

Initially, she thought of booking them rooms at a hotel just south of the city. But Senge 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."

Three hours before check-in, as the couple was assembling gift baskets and food for the intended guests, a Hotel du Pont representative called Senge and canceled the reservation.

"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."

DuPont 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.

"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, news of the DuPont refusal prompted Brad A. Wenger, general manager of the Hilton Wilmington Christiana off Churchmans Road near Stanton, to offer 10 free rooms Thursday night for homeless people.

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 Wenger's offer "beautiful."

She said she and Senge believe the Hotel du Pont's change of heart may have been motivated by negative publicity.

"I have real mixed feelings about it," she said Thursday night.

But she said she was glad, nonetheless, that the people she and her husband had planned to surprise with Christmas night at the hotel instead will be staying there this Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

"We have invited Mr. Senge's guests to the hotel, as early as this weekend," Lisa Bolten, director of DuPont Hospitality, said in a statement released Thursday evening. "If the guests do not have IDs, we will work with them to address that."

Contact robin brown at (302) 324-2856 or rbrown@delawareonline.com. Find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @rbrowndelaware.