Vancouver's downtown east side becomes a testing ground for one man who agrees to live on the street for 31 days, starting with nothing but a pair of underwear, no money, no phone, no contacts, and no home to return to. The experiment runs in the months leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics, a period when the city is spending heavily to polish its image for the world while its poorest residents remain visible a few blocks from the venues. The film follows him into shelters, soup kitchens, and welfare offices, tracking how much of his day gets consumed just trying to secure food, a bed, or a dry pair of socks, and how quickly the rules of survival replace the rules of ordinary life. Encounters with other people living on those same streets fill out the picture beyond one man's experiment, showing the routines, hierarchies, and small mutual-aid networks that keep people alive through a coastal winter. The Olympics stay in the background throughout, a reminder of what the city chose to spend money on instead.