The day after a mass shooting at a homeless encampment on his Lake Street property, Minneapolis developer Hamoudi Sabri was in triage mode, shuttling between HCMC where some of the injured were taken, and his property, where city crews were clearing away tents on Tuesday.
Standing outside the taped off area near the encampment, Sabri said, “As soon as these guys go and are done with this investigation, we’re going right in.” If he follows through, he faces an uphill battle over the encampment that has divided public opinion.
Last week, two days after the City Council voted to pursue litigation against him, Sabri spoke with Sahan Journal about his clash with the city, why he’s sheltering homeless residents, and what would make him stop opening new encampments. The City Council has since filed the lawsuit against him.
Here are five things to know about Sabri:
1. He comes from a Palestinian family with sprawling real estate holdings.
Sabri, 62, was born in the occupied West Bank to a family in the construction business. The youngest of 10 siblings, Sabri moved to the Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis when he was 15. He inherited his father’s real estate business in 1990, when he was in his 20s. His first property was a duplex at 2701 Dupont Ave. S., which he both lived in and rented out.
A father of three daughters, Sabri now owns multiple commercial and residential properties across the city under Downtown Northloop LLC and M&S Properties LLC, which is associated with his property in Lake Street. His eldest daughter, Samrina Sabri, is slated to take a role as a chief financial officer in his business enterprises.
His brother Basim Sabri owns Sabri Properties LLC which is associated with Karmel Mall, Plaza Mexico and Yusuf Corner. Earlier this year, Basim Sabri faced mortgage foreclosures on two Sabri Properties buildings in south Minneapolis — Rana Village and Karmel Village — for failing to pay $530,000 in required repairs.
One of Sabri’s ongoing projects is a hospital in his village in the West Bank in honor of his parents. Showing pictures of the rendering of the 13-story building, Sabri said that he wants to build a “semi Mayo Clinic.” “Most of our money is going to go to support that clinic. I’m very proud of it.”
2. He wasn’t always an advocate for his homeless neighbors.
The landlord’s childhood in the West Bank shapes how he views homelessness here in the Twin Cities. “I was displaced from my home as a child,” he said. “I lived in rubble for a month, we were looking for food. My dad is a rich, wealthy man [but] we had no money.” The memory shapes how he views the way unhoused people are routinely moved from one part of the city to another.
But Sabri admits that he didn’t always feel empathy towards the homeless population. “When I discovered that they are mentally ill, that changed my whole gameplay. I started getting more sympathetic with them, just when I saw them and talking to them and getting to know them and seeing the cause and why, and when I saw the staff and how the city treats them, and it took me a long time to learn.”
Now, he said he sees himself as “the ambassador for the homeless.”
3. This isn’t his first time opening a homeless encampment.
Sabri, who owns a property on N. 5th Street in the North Loop where he opened his first encampment in 2021, said he chose the site because it was in a majority-white neighborhood. “I love what I do, because I create things to change neighborhoods,” he said.
Towards the end of that year, Sabri invited the people who were sleeping on the sidewalk to stay on his property after he said he reached out to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to discuss the issue but did not get a response. (A spokesperson for the mayor said the city has no record of the meeting request.) He said it was a short-term solution while the city “gets it done right.”
After several attempts to clear the encampment, the city finally removed the residents in March 2022 following incidents of drug overdose, fires and accumulated garbage on the site. Sabri even thanked the city for handling the closure carefully.
He said he did so because “I used to believe their [expletive].”
Then, in July this year, Sabri decided “enough is enough,” and welcomed homeless people to set up camp on his property on 2716 E. Lake Street, beside Universal Academy Charter School, marking the second chapter of his tussle with the city.
4. He has a beef with the mayor.
Sabri is exasperated with the city’s handling of homelessness at large, but his ire is particularly directed at Frey for what he sees as a failure to address the issue. “He wants to do what he wants to do. And he’s got some of the lousiest, most unqualified people working in his office,” he said. “He’s got to go.”
“I am one of the first people who built this city. It’s a beautiful city, and I won’t let him [Frey] destroy it.”
City officials said they maintained a daily presence at the encampment through the City’s Homeless Response Team and the Mobile Medical Unit to offer housing support and health resources.
At a late-night news conference following Monday’s shooting, Frey called out the unsafe conditions at the site.
“With this particular encampment you probably know there’s a long saga with it,” Frey said. “If he wants to sue us he can, if he wants to take this up in court, that is certainly his prerogative, but this is not safe.”
Sabri said he has kept a close eye on the encampment at Lake Street, regularly visiting the site to check how many people were living there, drug activity, and other nuisances, and had even hired a former occupant as the manager of the site.
The encampment, which housed about 100 people, was overcrowded and dirty, he admitted. “Of course, it’s dirty. They’re doing the best they can, though the reason it is dirty is because the city made it dirty to eyesore them and to make them and me look bad,” Sabri said. Now, he faces 12 citations for creating a public health nuisance.
“The city has provided Mr. Sabri multiple notices to abate the public health nuisance on the property, but he’s refused to do so,” Director of Public Services Enrique Velazquez said in an email to Sahan Journal.
5. City fines and lawsuits won’t deter him.
As much as it may appear otherwise, Sabri said he is not looking to pick a fight with the city. “I’m not here to [expletive] fight with the city. I’m here to make things happen. I’m fighting for a mission, and my mission is to get a system that’s going to work. The system today is not working. You start a new system, I’ll be damned if I come here, but get it done absolutely.”
So, what, according to Sabri, is a system that is going to work?
Sabri has a plan, one that he said he has come up with after talking to multiple people experiencing homelessness. The plan involves working with the county, Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to create a homeless shelter spanning “a couple thousand acres” outside the city to deter drug activity, along with a clinic and mental health services.
“I believe my concept will work, and when they do it, I’m done. I’ll shut my face.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to add details about the city’s response to the Lake Street encampment and Sabri’s attempts to reach the mayor in 2021.
