A homeless man approaches a couple walking in Detroit earlier this year. Some homeless allege they are being driven out of town, quite literally. J.D. Pooley/Getty Images

DETROIT — Charles Jones said he was walking around downtown here when a police officer pulled up in a scout car and ordered him to get in. Jones, who is homeless, was driven to a suburb 20 minutes away and left on the side of the freeway.

"They took my $6 and told me to get back the best way I can," said Jones, 46, who has been on the streets since 2009. "I walked down I-94 for hours."

Eventually, he said, some suburban police officers spotted him and gave him bus money.

That was last week and it was the third time it has happened to him this year, he said, adding he was also "taken for rides" in April and July.

Although many of its neighborhoods are in shambles, Detroit's downtown has not looked this good in decades. The area is steadily filling with eateries and small businesses. The majority of new lofts and other housing are increasingly inhabited by young, former suburbanites. The district is home to three professional sports stadiums.

But like a lot of cities, Detroit faces an indelicate problem: what to do with its homeless, particularly in revived areas like downtown. In April, after a year-long investigation, the Michigan ACLU accused the Detroit Police Department of approaching at least five men who appeared to be homeless in some downtown areas, forcing them into vehicles and deserting them miles away.

It also filed a complaint with the Justice Department against what it called years of "illegal and abusive tactics against homeless individuals." The ACLU said the men had initially complained to a downtown warming center, which contacted the ACLU.

In ACLU video testimony of two alleged homeless victims, Andrew Sheehan said that he had been given at least four rides away from downtown since 2011, and that one took him eight miles away. A man identified only as Charles E. said he was walking on the sidewalk last year when police put him in a van and drove him across town.

The police department did not officially reply to the complaint, but representatives of its internal affairs department visited the office the day it was filed to investigate and to assure that the practice would stop, said ACLU of Michigan Deputy Director Rana Elmir. "The ACLU continues to investigate whether the practice is continuing," Elmir recently told Al Jazeera.