HT BoingBoing:

Thwarted in her attempt to enjoy a cup of acoffee at her favorite spot, Louise Kilborn unwittingly found herselfat the center of a social debate that's been brewing for years.

The70-year-old Lisle woman was kicked out of the Starbucks in downtownGlen Ellyn a few weeks ago. She claims it was because employees mistookher as a homeless person, part of a purge the store waged to mollifycustomers who complained that the coffee shop was overrun with thehomeless.

Despite an apology from theSeattle-based coffee giant, Kilborn says she isn't looking for one. Shewants something done to address the circumstances that prompted herremoval in the first place.

"The issuehere is not that I was asked to leave Starbucks," Kilborn said. "It isthe treatment of the homeless who are singled out."

This story reminds me of an excellent law review article by Jeremy Waldron from a few years ago about the particularly acute problem faced by homeless people within a society structured around private property protected by a robust right to exclude. In recent years, the problem has become even more oppressive as public property has become increasingly hostile to their presence, as evinced by the growing popularity of laws prohibiting loitering, sleeping in public, etc.. (Interestingly, a number of courts have held the enforcement of such laws unconstitutional because they result in cruel and unusual punishment since the homeless simply cannot avoid the practices from which they are prohibited in engaging if they are to remain living, physically embodied human beings.) The homeless need to be somewhere, in a very literal sense of that word, but they have no place to go.