Report: ACLU Responds to Columbia Mall Homeless Bans

The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has responded to a newspaper report of a perceived crackdown on homeless people at The Mall in Columbia, asking mall officials to change their mind on the banning of two people from the premises, according to The Baltimore Sun.

The ACLU claimed in a letter to mall officials that the bans were "unfair and illegal," that the two homeless people were not breaking mall rules in the separate instances when they were told they had to leave.

One of the homeless people had just bought food at the Starbucks in the mall when a security guard told her to leave, the ACLU claimed. A week later, she returned to the mall, and security guards banned her for a year, saying she was disturbing the peace, the civil liberties organization said.

Another homeless person was reading a book on a sofa in the mall when a security guard told him to leave, the ACLU claimed. He was doing the same thing a week later when guards banned him for a year, the organization said.

Both people told their stories in an ACLU-produced video. Footage from their interviews can be seen at this link.

The ACLU's legal director told the Sun that she was "hopeful we'll be able to negotiate about this," though the organization did not rule out going to court over the issue.

The ACLU's letter follows a February article in The Washington Post in which homeless people and people who work with them claimed that two homeless people were banned from the mall "and about 20 more have been told that they should stay out during the early morning."

The Post reporter looking into that story was also ordered out of the mall and told that interviewing people there without permission was not allowed, according to the article.