What happens when a homeless person is given $100,000?

My buddy was on the verge of homelessness this week, and I found this documentary at the perfect time. I’ve been wanting to see this type of experiment for a long time.

The documentary is called Reversal of Fortune and was released in 2005. The documentary follows a man named Ted who has been homeless for the last 20 years in Pasadena, California. He sleeps under an underpass and spends most of his days gathering cans and bottles to scrounge up a few dollars for recycling. Once you get some background on Ted, you see him dumpster diving only to find a briefcase full of $100,000 cash. Once this happens, it’s off to the races!

Ted actually starts out slow and reasonable with the money. He bought a new bike and rented a hotel room. He also very generously bought a used car for his best friend who is an 18-yr-old who works at the recycling plant. They both also went to an amusement park.

Ted decides to visit his mom and sisters in Sacramento, and things start to go downhill from there. He met with a homeless advocate as well as a financial advisor at the request of the filmmakers. The advice seemed to go in one ear and out the other. Ted liked to go to the bar drinking every night. He also decided to buy a brand new truck for $34K. He was frustrated jumping through hoops trying to get his driver’s license reinstated. He rented an apartment and started buying all kinds of furniture. He was dating multiple women, taking one out for a lobster dinner, and buying another truck for another mistress.

The film ends six months after Ted received the money. He refused to tell the producers how much money was left in his account, but his sisters indicated that it was less than $5,000. According to Wikipedia Ted and the director went on Oprah to market the movie. Oprah asked him point-blank how much money he had left and he said none. He was also back to collecting cans and bottles for the recycling place.

This documentary is a fascinating study of human behavior. We were not surprised by what happened to Ted. My buddy offered up a verse from Proverbs: “Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.” My buddy knows a lot of homeless people, and he said they are incredibly hard to rehabilitate for a variety of reasons. The ones who aren’t mentally ill are incredibly stubborn and do not want to follow the rules of society. The long-timers would rather stay homeless than be subjected to rules about what they can and cannot do.

I was unable to find the documentary on any of the usual streaming services, but we watched it on YouTube where someone recorded it with a camcorder and uploaded the whole thing in several parts.