After the first half an hour of watching, I was getting annoyed with this documentary and I thought if that was the way everything was going to be portrayed until the end, then it would just be a mostly false presentation of the situation. Why? Because I've dealt with people addicted to drugs and I could see how incredibly naive Michael was thinking that if he could organize rehabs for everyone, then they would just happily stay there, be grateful for having a roof over their heads, get a job afterwards and basically stop being homeless thanks to that. The moment when he started renting hotel rooms for more and more young homeless people (not all of them could be call kids in my opinion) while constantly blaming everybody around for the fact that these people were living that way, then I thought about not watching this any longer.
The thing is that there is a difference when the problem is the lack of finances to have a place to stay but if somebody's been taking drugs for many years and had to learn how to "hustle" to survive on the street, then even if he found a job for each of them and a house for all of them to stay in, they would end up in the same spot pretty quickly without THEIR decision that they'd had enough and wanted to accept the help and start with first getting clean. So the moment he sent Bublez to rehab, I was wondering if they were going to show how quickly she would leave with some excuse and be back taking drugs on the street.
But thankfully, this documentary shows what was happening with the kinds for the following 7 years and that's when it shows the true story of being a young, homeless and addicted person. I know that Michael meant well but it's a human nature that he would be manipulated by some of them, he would be lied to by others to get something from him - both calculated gain but also more attention than others. And he wasn't putting any boundaries at the beginning, believing everything he was told and wishfully thinking that he resolved some problems within the first few months of being with these people.
That's why I am so glad that he continued the help and the documentary for years after that, showing how much time and effort it takes from both sides to help one addicted, homeless person. And I applaud him for being with some of these people for so many years and not giving up, so not disappointing them like nearly everybody in their life. It was a pleasure to see the change in those who trusted him and decided to fight for themselves. Most of the people in their situation is not going to be successful even with all the possible help available - because only a small percent of people can recover from addiction and even then they can relapse and lose everything.
He did a great job in the end and I think it's worth to see it.
