Good Samaritan pays for 70 Chicago homeless to stay in hotel

CHICAGO, Ill. – A good Samaritan offered to pay for hotel rooms for 70 homeless people in Chicago who were camped out in tents amid the bitter cold blanketing the Midwest.

The offer came after the Chicago Fire Department on Wednesday confiscated nearly 100 propane tanks that had been given to the group to keep them warm. The department acted after one of the donated tanks exploded.

Temperatures at the time sank to negative 22 degrees (negative 20 Celsius).

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Salvation Army spokeswoman Jacqueline Rachev says city officials told the organization about their actions at the camp, and that the Salvation Army was about to move the people to a warming center.

City officials then called the organization to say someone had offered to pay for hotels. Rachev says she wasn't sure of the identity of the good Samaritan and only knew the hotel was on the city's South Side.