Council authorizes legal action against property owner over Minneapolis encampment
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A real estate developer has allowed dozens of people to stay on an empty lot that he owns in the Longfellow neighborhood, racking up at least $15,000 in fines for public health citations.
But unless he’s presented with a court order, Hamoudi Sabri said there’s nothing the city can do to make him close off his property from people who need a place to sleep.
On Monday, the Minneapolis City Council voted 6-4 to authorize legal action against Sabri. They took up the vote after Mayor Jacob Frey called a special session for the council to discuss the potential lawsuit.
The lawsuit is anticipated to be filed later this week, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said.
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In a statement after the vote, Frey said he appreciated the council’s “partnership on the matter.”
“True compassion means safe shelter, basic sanitation, and healthy living conditions — none of which are present at this encampment,” he said. “Today’s action gives us another tool to both address these unsafe conditions and safeguard nearby residents, students, and businesses.”
However, it was not a smooth process. It followed more than two hours of closed-door discussion and another hour of deliberation in public, in a conversation that struck at wider differences over the city’s approach to addressing homelessness.
“Instead of wasting time and energy into a lawsuit, we can instead move people into a navigation center, move people into a location that is more safe and secure, not only for the folks living at the encampment, but the neighbors in the area,” said council member Jason Chavez who voted against taking legal action. “And I think that if we are actually going to address unsheltered homelessness, we need to be a lot more serious than this lawsuit today.”
Council members Aurin Chowdhury, Aisha Chughtai and Elliott Payne were the three others who voted against the resolution. Six voted in favor: Andrea Jenkins, Michael Rainville, LaTrisha Vetaw, Linea Palmisano, Emily Koski, Jamal Osman. Three other council members were not present at the time of the vote.
“This issue continues to create public health and public safety issues for our community and the residents that live there, and it is our responsibility to address that particular issue,” Jenkins said. “Which is what this motion intends to do.”
Those concerns include drug needles, solid waste and a lack of portable restrooms.
Jamal Osman ultimately voted in favor of authorizing the lawsuit, but expressed repeated grievances over the administration not holding itself to the same standard when it comes to encampments on city-owned land.
He said he had previously requested portable restrooms for public encampments in his ward, but the city did not provide them. He also called out the city for “offering shelters that are not there.”
Sabri followed up the meeting with his own statement, calling the lawsuit “political theater at the expense of real solutions.”
“This vote is a setback,” he said. “But it also shows the urgency of building a plan that treats people with dignity instead of pushing them from block to block.”
‘They just keep moving them around’
“The reason they’re here is they’ve been kicked around a lot,” Sabri said of those staying in the space, after city workers came in late August to clean up trash that had accumulated around the perimeter of the encampment. Sabri was billed for that.
“Now they’re here as a hub. It’s easy for people to find them, to feed them, to help them,” he said. “So what is the city doing? They just keep moving them around.”
Sabri said he would be open to working more with the city if the mayor came to the encampment and engaged with the people living there, offering more than temporary shelter, which is often full.
Frey’s special meeting was initially planned for three days after the charter school next to Sabri’s property started classes, but was rescheduled due to the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School.
The Minneapolis Health Department had tracked the presence of drug needles, solid waste, lack of sanitation facilities and other hazardous debris since the encampment formed in early July. Sabri was first issued a public health nuisance letter July 21 and Minneapolis tried but failed to take down the encampment a few days later.
“It’s a multipronged approach,” said Enrique Velázquez, the city’s director of regulatory services which houses the homeless response team. “We need to address the humanity. And every single person in the encampment, as well as all those who aren’t in the encampment — the school next door, all the other neighbors, every single one of them — are affected by what’s happening here.”
The city has an anti-camping ordinance. Velázquez said allowing encampments is “basically saying we fail. We give up.” However, he said the city and Sabri agreed to help Sabri get portable toilets and hand washing stations, which Sabri would pay for, and would look into providing trash cans. Two weeks later, a city spokesperson said they’re “still working on getting all the connections made.”
The mayor’s recommended budget for next year cuts more than $212,000 for contracts that would have gone toward handwashing stations, portable toilets and storage for unsheltered people. It also invests millions into efforts to boost affordable housing development and homeownership, as well as $1 million for emergency shelter response.
Advocates push back
Sheila Delaney has previously contracted with the Frey administration for addressing unsheltered homelessness and helped establish Avivo Village in the North Loop, an indoor tiny home shelter that is less restrictive than many traditional shelter models. She’s also an advocate for safe outdoor spaces, where people can camp outside in a way that would be managed and cleaned by the city, and allow for social services at the site to help people transition out.
Several city council members have been working on pursuing that idea in Minneapolis, including looking into a model for allowing people to park their cars in established areas to sleep, similar to a new initiative in Duluth.
Delaney said any legal action would be hypocritical since she knows of other encampments on city property not provided with trash containers and hand-washing stations.
“If public health was the litmus test, then frankly the city should sue itself,” she said. “No one wants anyone in encampments, [but] moving them around from place to place is not a pathway out of homelessness. It’s a revolving door of trauma.”
Ally Peters, spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office, said the city has been on site most days, offering shelter and services to those living there, but said many did not accept the offers “and the situation has now escalated into a health and safety risk.” She said the city has been approaching it “with an eye for both compassion and safety.”
Jess Olstad, a spokesperson for the city, said the Homeless Response Team was working with three people who expressed interest in sleeping in a shelter Aug. 26 but were not able to that night. Olstad said the team was working to find shelter space that accommodated their needs, including allowing a couple to stay together.
Around noon that day, there were no available shelter beds in Minneapolis, according to the Hennepin Shelter Hotline.
Olstad said two people were able to secure a spot at Avivo Village.
She also said the city’s new mobile medical unit, which was at the site in the morning, conducted seven patient care visits and handed out opioid overdose reversal treatment, wound care kits, sharps containers, and substance abuse disorder resources to people.
Encampment residents seek help
Gionte Roberts, 37, who was staying at the encampment, said county outreach workers helped him apply for a food assistance card and secure a spot on a housing waitlist.
On the same day, he walked from the encampment, crossing under the Lake/Midtown light rail station to the Hennepin County Human Service Center to pick up his card.
Carly Sornsen, 23, had stayed in the encampment for more than a month. As she organized her belongings one afternoon, which included a book about dreams and a cooler with water she shared with neighboring tents, she expressed frustration that there wasn’t more of an effort among others to keep the area cleaner. She straightened out a sheet in her tent.
“There’s a school right there,” she said. “It looks bad, people leaving needles all over and there’s people nodded out … like it’s just gross.”
Still, she said, “people aren’t realizing that this pretty much is the last place that we have to have this kind of thing. Otherwise, then what? We’re all gonna be under a bridge or in some field somewhere, then we’re still gonna get kicked out of there.”
