A popular YouTube host/construction worker turned his attention to the shocking reality of the streets and encampments of Minneapolis in video that has gone viral.
Stanley Genadek, known as “Dirt Monkey” on YouTube, spoke with Liz Collin on her podcast about how his now-viral video street tour of several spots of Minnesota’s largest city took a surprising turn.
Genadek told Collin, “I had seen what was going on inside of the city that I grew up in and I’ve grown up in Minneapolis, right on the outskirts of it, for my entire life, so for 53 years. I’ve worked digging basements and demoing houses and building walls and doing stuff inside of Minneapolis for the better part of the last 20 to 30 years, but I noticed things were taking a sudden and dramatic turn, but nobody was speaking out about this. You could find blurbs on the news here and there, but the truth of how far it had fallen wasn’t out there in a way for people to see and experience.”
“Like, let’s get granular with this thing and let’s actually look at what’s going on, not these formal presentations where the news comes on and tells you, there was a fire in a homeless encampment and you’re so disconnected, you just go, where is that? I don’t know anything about it. No, let’s show the people what’s actually happening in the world around them,” Genadek added.
He expressed dismay and disgust at what he captured during his November street tour.
Genadek also offered an unfortunately fitting analogy: “Minneapolis is nothing like it used to be and I don’t know when it actually really started to go bad fast, but it’s almost like a toilet flushing, right? Starts out and then by the time you get to the bottom, boom, it’s too late. Everything’s gone. And that’s where Minneapolis is at at this point. It’s to the point where, how do we pull back from this?”
He also pinpointed what he considers a key part of the problem: drugs.
“A lot of people think these homeless encampments are an issue with people that have lost their job. That’s not it at all. When I did this video, there were 400 beds available for these people to sleep in. They could get in and out of their tents. They could go sleep inside, but they gotta quit doing their drugs to be able to access those facilities. And so they choose to do their drugs over get in and out of the weather. And that’s where it became this really ‘aha’ moment of the homeless encampments are really a drug problem and mental health, of course, but it’s this one-two combination of this is where things have gotten,” Genadek said.
He was also quick to point out others who are suffering the problems stemming from the encampments.
“I just found people that were gone. Just lost. They’re just living from fix to fix … You are legitimately putting the people in the neighborhood in jeopardy,” Genadek added.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
