jFor a time, most of the United States’ unsheltered homeless individuals found refuge in the streets of Miami, but a recent survey showed a welcome improvement.
According to the 2021 Homeless Census conducted by Miami-Dade County, homelessness in the city reached its lowest level in 25 years.
Covid-19 pandemic contributed to the progress, as people were put in quarantine which was essentially a hotel program. At the pandemic’s peak, at least six hotels housed the unsheltered.
For many reasons, homelessness is somehow related to the crime rate.
Most crimes homeless people commit are misdemeanor and non-violent, such as panhandling or nuisance offenses. Some of them, however, make exceptions.
In Lincoln Road, Miami, an armless homeless painter never failed to grab the attention of passersby and tourists, local or otherwise. Jonathan Crenshaw is no stranger to living in the streets.
Using his feet, he has been drawing abstract figures for years in his open-air studio near the Lincoln Road Mall.
In 2018, he was charged with aggravated battery after allegedly stabbing a tourist with a pair of scissors, and he was found not guilty.
10 /10 Rat Poison
Jonathan Crenshaw was born in Alabama. For much of his childhood, Jonathan and his mother moved to various cities, including San Diego, El Paso, and other places, with barely enough time to make friends between relocations.
He admitted to having little care for those times partly because his mother used to feed him with rat poison.
Jonathan has no arms and never talked much about his disability with anybody. Some call him “birdman” due to his wing-like limbs protruding from his shoulders.
9 /10 Otherwise A Talker
Apart from his ability to paint using his feet, he is known to talk about many unlikely things in his past.
He doesn’t like to discuss the protruding limbs but is always in the mood for some exaggerated confessions.
For example, he once claimed to have been born with sharp teeth, forcing the government to take a drastic measure and drill them dull.
At another time, he told a story about how he had been killed twice, and lighting brought him back to life.