By now you’ve certainly heard of him. Who hasn’t?

Ted Williams — the golden-voiced homeless man who rocketed from roadside panhandling to instant media stardom — provided the kind of feel-good story we all love to hear.

But what started out as a down-and-outer catching a lucky break soon turned into media frenzy with TV networks and major brands clamoring to grab a hold of Williams’ radio voice and piggy-back on his success.

Unfortunately, Williams — a recovering alcoholic — became an immediate commodity. Unequipped to deal with the pressure of instant fame, and undoubtedly grappling with demons from his past, he checked into rehab a short week later.

There are lessons to be learned here.

Firstly, a lightning-speed transformation can be overwhelming for anyone, never mind for someone who is homeless, vulnerable, recovering from addictions and used to rejection.

Of course, a lot of us would like to think we’d be different, that fame and fortune wouldn’t change us. But that’s simply not the case — everything in life changes us. Every single one of us has different coping mechanisms, and some of us simply can’t cope at all due to past abuses or scars.

Just think of new celebrities who often times end up in serious drug addictions. And to think they have support structures in place — agents, advisors and managers.

Williams didn’t have any support.

Evidently, he wasn’t getting any advice either, as he freely gave out his cellphone number on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Secondly, Williams was panhandling for a reason. To think he was only homeless because he hadn’t yet been discovered is naïve.

Williams was homeless because at some point he stopped functioning. And when someone is homeless, family, friends, community and government likely gave up on them — maybe because of the addictions, maybe for other reasons.

Williams was, in many ways, a broken man struggling with serious issues of his own.

Thirdly, Williams didn’t need fame thrust upon him. Williams didn’t need 10 job offers, a televised reunification with his mother and the spotlights of media conglomerates shining brightly on him.

What Williams needed was some privacy, a support system, residential therapy, rehab, and eventually some voiceover jobs like he wanted. He needed to gradually rebuild his life and career.

Most of all, what Williams needed was people to extend a helping hand because they cared about him as a human being, not because they cared about his voice, his success or his rags-to-national-TV story.

Bringing it all back home, the issues of why people face homelessness in Canada have very little to do with lack of money.

Rather, they have something to do with the sum of people’s experiences that stop them from coping with life.

Yes, there is a lot of talent in people who are homeless — after all, they are people like you and me! But there is also a lot of brokenness that has to be healed before people can reach their dreams.

The solution to homelessness is not giving every homeless person a YouTube video; it’s people genuinely caring for the less fortunate.

— Floyd Perras is the executive director of Siloam Mission.

SUN Article