BENTONVILLE — A local hotel has ended a program meant to provide transitional housing to homeless veterans and their families.
The Wingate by Wyndham hotel, just north of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, started the program last spring. Homeless veterans and their families — including children and pets — were allowed to stay at the hotel for $14 per day, well below regular rates.
Donald Culbertson, chief executive officer of the Sunway Hotel Group, which operates the Wingate by Wyndham, said most of the people staying there through the program weren’t paying anything.
The program didn’t work the way he envisioned it, and he became fed up with the veterans organizations involved in it.
“I’ve talked and talked to these people. I tried to do a good thing, but it turned out to be so much politics with these people, that everybody wanted to be boss, take credit, and I was the one giving away the rooms,” Culbertson said. “Life’s too short to put up with that.”
He added the program, launched last spring, was costing his company $30,000 per month, and some people were overstaying their welcome. The program was intended to help veterans get back on their feet.
“They were supposed to be there only 60 days,” Culbertson said. “Some had been there eight months without paying anything.”
It’s unclear how many people are affected by the hotel’s decision. As of late July, 22 people were living at the hotel as part of the program. Half of them were children.
Jose Martinez, state commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, was part of the Veterans Without Homes Coalition that had helped launch the program. He resigned from the coalition Thursday because of differences with other coalition leaders.
“The coalition was started without a business plan whatsoever,” Martinez said. “I don’t fault the hotel for trying to recoup some of their money.”