PHILLIPSBURG, New Jersey (WNBC) - A 75-year-old New Jersey woman faces the possibility of eviction for hanging three American flags from her balcony.
Main street Phillipsburg is adorned with that inalienable symbol of American patriotism.
The stars and stripes hang in front of the municipal building, on private homes and commercial businesses.
There's a big one outside the government run senior housing complex where Dawn Paulus lives, but it's the three little ones hanging from her sixth floor balcony that have stirred a huge controversy.
"They say I should be shipped off to the Russian gulag, that I'm anti-American," says Housing Authority Executive Director Paul Rummerfield.
That's because the Housing Authority has ordered Paulus to take down the flags she attached to her balcony in early may or face eviction.
That was two weeks ago and the flags are still there.
"I understand that's their rules, but I'm still sticking to my Constitutional rights," Paulus says.
Paulus decorated her entire one bedroom apartment to mark the Memorial Day holiday, and says if she stuck the flags in her flowerpot, it wouldn't be the same.
The Housing Authority says it's not about old glory, it's about safety.
"Let's just say you let somebody have a flag and somebody puts a hanging basket up there that's filled with dirt that may weight five to ten pounds and comes crashing down on someone. It has a potential to hurt, then it's we didn't do enough to protect people," Rummerfield explains.
It's right there in the lease, paragraph 20, but Paulus says she wants a legal opinion before she waves the white flag.
"If the law says I have to, I will," she says.
Dawn has lived in this senior complex for four years now, she pays $423 a month and knows it's competitive and if they kick her out, it will be tough to get back in. But she says you can't put a price tag on freedom.
"Our veterans gave their lives for us and this is why it's supposed to be freedom. But for me, I don't know if this is freedom if I can't fly my flag," Paulus says.
WNBC