In a 6-4 vote during a closed session on Monday, the Minneapolis City Council approved a motion to take legal action against a commercial parking lot owner who turned his property into an encampment for people experiencing homelessness.

In late August, Mayor Jacob Frey called a special City Council meeting to discuss possibly suing owner Hamoudi Sabri, as the city's unable to clear private property. Sabri was told to clean the lot, located off East Lake Street and 28th Avenue South, by Aug. 25. He refused, and city crews were called in to do it at his expense. To date, the city says it's fined Sabri $15,000.

This is the second time in nearly four years Sabri has clashed with city leaders over what he calls their failures to find adequate solutions to help people who find themselves living in encampments. Sabri owns multiple lots in the Twin Cities, previously opening one of his in North Loop for a similar encampment.  

"What is the city doing? They just keep moving them around. So I'm not going to throw them around for Frey to shift them around because that's all he's been doing is shifting these guys around from one place to another," Sabri told WCCO last month.

The city calls the encampment in Sabri's lot, located near Universal Academy Charter School and the East Lake Library, a public health and safety risk due to the accumulation of human waste, garbage and drug paraphernalia. 

Damōn Chaplin, the city's health commissioner, told WCCO last month this is a "humanitarian issue."

"This is not the way we want our residents to live in the city of Minneapolis," Chaplin said.