First-time filmmaker Michael Paul provides an immediate portrait into the local drug-addicted homeless in conservative small town Utah. In a community filled with students attending the most sober university in America 10 years running, these undergraduates have signed a contract to not consume alcohol or drugs and to not even let a member of the opposite sex into their bedroom. This hyper-conservative town is the backdrop for the film The Long Look on Life, which details a makeshift homeless shelter and the lives of its inhabitants. Run by a former drug addict struggling with his own schizophrenia, the shelter provides housing to many rotating tenants, all struggling with mental problems or drugs. Paul traces the lives of three of these addicts and comes to a deeper knowledge about himself as he helps them try to conquer their lifelong struggles.