Fall and rise of homeless Ted

He would stand beside an exit lane leading off a US highway and hold a cardboard sign with the words: "I'm an ex-radio announcer who has fallen on hard times."

Then last month, a local newspaper recorded a video of him talking about his life in a deep, golden voice.

The clip became a viral sensation online, and, in less than a month, Williams was offered jobs with MTV, ESPN, the NFL and the NBA.

"I feel like Susan Boyle," Williams told The Columbus Dispatch, the newspaper that first published the video, about his sudden fame.

"Or Justin Bieber. It’s almost choking me."

But breaks like this are all too rare for the homeless.

In Australia, the most recently available census data on homelessness published in a 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics report revealed that there were 104,676 Australians living on the streets - with 27,374 from NSW.

"Although occasions like that might happen around the world, I think it’s often a one-off," said Daniel Petsalis of Mission Australia’s Missionbeat homeless transport service.

"I’ve been fortunate in the last nine years to have met thousands of homeless people that do have skills and expertise to offer.

"We’ve got some great people on the streets who are fantastic musicians or who get in involved in theatre and ... can become professionals."

Petsalis said one of the drawbacks for homeless people seeking jobs is not having a permanent address, or even a phone number they can be contacted on.

"[It’s] the simple things that we all take for granted that often homeless people don’t have. It just adds another hurdle in their challenge to get back into the community."

But not everyone remains trapped in a cycle of homelessness. Some people do rebuild their lives, find a home and return to the workforce, although "not to the extreme that the guy with the golden tonsils has", Petsalis said.

"On a smaller scale, I had a young woman who came up to me a while back and gave me a pat on the back. I didn’t even know who she was and she said, ‘Hey, you know, I just want to thank you guys. If it wasn’t for you guys I still wouldn’t be here. I’m going to TAFE; I’ve got myself a sign-writing job’.

"That was just fantastic to hear - that her life had been transformed and turned around simply by the interaction that she had with Missionbeat."

Petsalis’s colleague, Maria Berry from Mission Australia’s homeless services for women, said there were lots of opportunities for people out there if they were given a chance and had the right support.

She told the story of a woman - a single mother who had brought up her two children, put them through school and had gone to TAFE herself.

But then her life took a turn for the worse when her son committed suicide. Her life fell apart.

"She came to us at the refuge and we’re able to help her get a place and get some support. To this day, she lives in her own house and is back on track with her life," Berry said.

Both Berry and Petsalis stressed the importance of community awareness and corporate engagement. Berry cited the example of maintenance activities run by Mission Australia, where employees from different organisations help out at their centres, while Petsalis spoke of taking business leaders, politicians and others to meetings with homeless people.

"They’ve got these preconceived ideas that homeless people are drug addicts, alcoholics, they are violent, aggressive.

"And they come out and meet people and sit in the park and hold a conversation ... and often they walk away, just blown away and go ‘Oh wow, I just didn’t realise homeless people were just normal everyday people’," he said.

Back in the US, Williams, now without his mass of hair, said he was flying to New York to see his 90-year-old mother, who lives in Brooklyn and stood by him during his battles with addiction.

"She has always been my best friend,’’ he told The Associated Press. "When I was a kid, she would take me down to Radio City Music Hall and on the subway.

"I’m just glad that she is still around. I prayed that she would live long enough that I could make her proud and see could her son do something other than stand along the side of the road with a sign asking for money."

with AP