The news has been filled over the past week with stories on Ted Williams also known as the “Homeless man with the golden voice.” With over 11 million views on YouTube and news stories circulating from around the world touting the phenomenon of someone with a great voice being homeless in America, I am perplexed. Specifically, I am unimpressed with the outpouring of attention lavished on this man and I am reminded just how addicted we are to celebrity and how messed up we really are when it comes to caring beyond the soundbite. I am also unimpressed and even saddened by the attention focused on this one person and the lack of attention our nation gives the one million people who are homeless every night in this country. Do not get me wrong, I am happy that Ted is getting his shot at exiting homelessness, but every homeless individual I have met in my 19 years of working with the homeless in Houston, Texas is gifted in their own way, deserving opportunity, and more importantly everyone homeless is first a human being.
Ted and his mother were reunited this week after a 10-year separation. During the interview on the Today Show she to told her son to “please don’t disappoint me.” Not only could I feel that she wanted to say “again,” you could also sense the pain from years of unmet expectations as his mother reflected. Ted’s mother concluded her comments compelling him to “Hold your life together.” Before we pass judgment on Ted or his mom’s response this week, pause, take a deep breath, and reflect on the countless possibilities. First, there are numerous factors that could have contributed to Ted’s predicament including foreclosure and the lack of affordable housing, eroding work opportunities and low paying jobs, substance abuse and lack of needed services, mental illness and lack of needed services, domestic violence, unemployment, poverty, prison release, and changes/cuts in public assistance. Research has shown homelessness results from a complex set of circumstances that require people to regularly choose between food, shelter, and other basic needs. Only a concerted effort to ensure jobs that pay a living wage, adequate support for those who cannot work, affordable housing, and access to health care will bring an end to homelessness for not only Ted but for all of the children and adults who suffer daily on our city’s streets. Second, we don’t really know the conditions of Ted’s childhood but we do know that after 90 years his mother could have become a different person than the one Ted grew up with. She has had a few years to become the sweet little old lady we experienced this week in the videos. Experience
CNN’s Jessica Ravitz interviewed Dr. Charles Sophy, psychiatrist, author, and medical director of the County of Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services saying, “Right now, it’s exciting. He can show his mom he’s a success. But to sustain it we need to make sure he has what he needs…giving someone success isn’t always the answer to make sure someone feels successful.” Dr. Sophy said, “Unless someone’s sobriety is really tight and well under control, success can trigger a relapse.”
It will require far more than a voice-over contract with Kraft foods or to be offered a job by the Cleveland Cavaliers to resurrect Ted’s life. It will require him to make the decision that he is honestly sick and tired of being sick and tired. It will take silencing the memory of years of addiction, it will require him to not resort to the deceptive practices of the experienced addict, and it will require Ted to push through a life of failed hopes and dreams with tremendous humility. The real test for Ted will begin once the cameras are gone and everyone has moved on to the next sensation. The real test for us lies in our concern for all of the Ted Williams’ in the world regardless to the absence of unique gifts or celebrity.
Do we have to know a person’s name or hear a person speak in order to assign them the dignity of humanity, does the person’s story have to go viral on the internet in order for us to validate a person’s right to life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, do we have the capacity to care for faceless masses trapped on our city’s streets without an incentive for that caring?
What would happen if we allowed this moment to impact our collective consciousness to the point where we would decide to care about the person who has become homeless because their brain has been scrambled by life’s circumstances, or the person who’s life has been destroyed because of an inferior and unequal education, or the person who is simply…… homeless?
Here’s a Love Revolutionary thought: “If we care, the world will change”
