⛺️ August rundown: 27th and Lake encampment standoff continues

The ongoing standoff over a private-property encampment at 27th and Lake continues on after the latest city mandate to clear the property came and went on Tuesday.

In early July, building owner Hamoudi Sabri opened the parking lot behind his long-vacant building at 2716 East Lake Street to homeless residents, citing frustration with the city's approach to clearing and dispersing encampments. In the latest of a long history of clashes between Sabri and city officials, crews were dispatched to clear the encampment soon after, but were turned away by Sabri. After a second attempt, the Star Tribune reported that Sabri and police reached a temporary compromise "in which the camp’s occupants would collapse their tents during the day, erect tarps for shade and put the tents back up at night to sleep in."

The city's latest order indicated it would clean the encampment at Sabri's expense on Tuesday if he did not disperse it. Minneapolis Health Commissioner Damon Chaplin told Fox 9 that "the uncleanliness, the refuse, the garbage, the needles – that's primarily for us what we are trying to abate," as well as citing its location next to Universal Academy Charter School.

That cleaning did not happen, and Sabri and homelessness advocate Sheila Delaney hosted a press conference in front of the site Tuesday morning, criticizing Mayor Jacob Frey's policy of dismantling encampments. "Moving them around from place to place to place, it's not a pathway out of homelessness, it's a revolving door of trauma," Delaney said.

Frey has called a special closed-door meeting today at 1 p.m. to brief city council on possible litigation against Sabri, who has said he has no plans of clearing the property.

🧀 Shepherd's Table awaiting final inspection to open