# Jamal Osman (politician)

Jamal Osman is a Somali-American politician in Minnesota's Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. In August 2020, he was elected to the Minneapolis City Council to represent the city's 6th Ward.

## Early life

Osman was born in Somalia and was a refugee in Kenya before coming to the United States when he was 14. After arriving in Minnesota, he lived in public housing.

## Career

Osman is a social services worker and has worked as a resident advocate for the non-profit CommonBond Communities. He has also served on the board of the Phillips Community Clinic.

### Minneapolis City Council

A special municipal election was held on August 11, 2020, for Ward 6's vacant seat. The previous councilmember, Abdi Warsame, resigned from the seat in March 2020 to head the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. The special election occurred after the George Floyd protests and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Osman said he would address the opioid crisis and advocated for access to affordable housing. Osman defeated 10 other candidates in the race and was sworn into office on August 28, 2020.
As of January 2024, Osman serves as the chair of the Business, Housing & Zoning Committee.

## Personal life

Osman is married to Ilo Amba, the founder of the non-profit organization Urban Advantage Services (UAS). The couple has five children. According to Osman, the family has resided in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, but questions arose about Osman having had a Maplewood, Minnesota, residential address during his 2020 city council campaign.
Homophobic and antisemitic Facebook posts
In 2022, Jamal Osman issued an apology for making antisemitic and anti-gay comments on Facebook between 2011 and 2013. The posts referred to Israelis as "dogs" and expressed support for Hitler. Osman also advocated for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and made derogatory remarks about Jews and non-Muslims. In response to the revelations, Osman apologized and disavowed his comments, stating that they do not reflect his current beliefs and values. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey criticized Osman's comments as divisive and dangerous and expressed forgiveness while emphasizing the need for recognizing common humanity and repairing harm caused. Osman's wife's connections to a child nutrition program implicated in fraud were also reported. Osman faces difficulties in his 2023 re-election campaign due to these controversies. Another candidate, Abdirizak Bihie, who has publicly condemned gay marriage, is running for the same seat.
Connection to the on-going Feeding Our Future trial
Federal prosecutors showed evidence to the jury in the Feeding Our Future trial on February 17, 2025 that Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman turned over his “shell company” nonprofit to others who used it to commit fraud. This came to light as Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock is on trial with a co-defendant for allegedly orchestrating a $250 million pay-to-play scheme through her nonprofit.
Concerned about the exponential growth in the program and possible fraud, the Minnesota Department of Education changed the rules in 2020 so for-profits could no longer be food distribution sites. So some of the players turned to nonprofits to continue the fraud, prosecutors say.
One of those, they say, was a nonprofit Osman founded called Stigma-Free International. Osman, his wife Ilo Amba and two others incorporated the nonprofit in August 2019. Osman has said he did mental health outreach before leaving the nonprofit but Postal Inspector John Western testified on February 18th, 2025 that Stigma-Free had no employees, office or apparent activity. Also, there was no activity in its bank account until Abdi Nur Salah “took over” and the nonprofit was turned over to Ahmed Artan and others in October 2020, Western said. At the time, Salah was a senior policy advisor to Mayor Jacob Frey. He was fired after his involvement became known, and he recently pleaded guilty.
Osman emailed Salah documents in 2020 about his nonprofit, and Salah forwarded them to an attorney and Salah’s brother, Abdulkadir Nur Salah, then co-owner of Safari Restaurant, a small Minneapolis restaurant that prosecutors say was one of the biggest players in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, receiving over $16 million in federal funds. Abdulkadir Nur Salah also recently pleaded guilty. In the aforementioned email, Osman said Stigma-Free wanted to dissolve as soon as possible and transfer to new people.
Osman exited the nonprofit about two months after he was elected to the City Council in August 2020. Prosecutors showed the jurors emails that he said he was resigning due to “family commitments and work schedule,” while lauding Stigma-Free as an “amazing organization” that grew during his time at the helm.
In the on-going trial, Stigma-Free International has been alleged to have opened meal sites in Willmar, Mankato, St. Cloud, Waite Park and St. Paul that prosecutors say were used to bilk the government out of more than $10 million.
About a month after turning Stigma-Free over to new directors, Osman’s wife, Amba, incorporated another nonprofit called Urban Advantage Center, which reported feeding 2,500 kids a day from February through September 2021, for which it was reimbursed more than $461,500. Neither Ambo nor Osman has been charged with a crime. Amba’s Urban Advantage Center was shut down in November by Attorney General Keith Ellison after he said Amba created the “sham” charity to enrich herself and her family by exploiting the federal program.

## Electoral history

Minneapolis City Council Ward 6 special election, 2020 :
| Political party/principle | Candidate | % 1st Choice | Round 1 |
| DFL | Jamal Osman | 27.51 | 2,131 |
| DFL | AJ Awed | 22.23 | 1,722 |
| DFL | AK Hassan | 13.76 | 1,066 |
| DFL | Abdirizak Bihi | 12.94 | 1,002 |
| DFL | Michael P. Dougherty | 5.05 | 391 |
| DFL | Alex Palacios | 4.96 | 384 |
| DFL | Saciido Shaie | 4.30 | 333 |