Bartleby Kemp is a homeless drifter who spends his days conning a living on streets of Santa Lucia, a seaside resort town in California. To torture her ultra-conservative husband (the town's mayor), Judy Blackwell decides to take up Kemp on his "Will Work for Food" offer and hires him (and his sidekick Jack Cook) to clear some weeds on her property. Kemp and Cook reluctantly perform the work, but take the opportunity to case Judy's house and later return to rob it. The fallout from the break-in provokes a bitter political debate about the town's homeless, and tests the limits of Judy's marriage...and her compassion.