YBOR CITY, Fla. — A homeless Bay area man is hoping his love of Ybor City roosters and his rooster art will help him get off the streets for good.

Chambers McNeil has been homeless for years. For the past several months he and his girlfriend Patricia have been living in his white Pontiac, food and all. 

“So we stay here in the car," he said. "Everybody love the peanut butter and jelly but I love crunchy," he said about the couple's stash of food on the passenger floorboard. 

McNeil said he has been a portrait artist in the past, but recently he took up creating pictures of Ybor roosters with pastel chalk. 

“I just said I always wanted to draw, man, so I picked it up and just to see what I could do with it," he explained. "Come to find out, hell, I was pretty damned good at it." 

Chambers said he has sold more than a hundred of the rooster creations.

“Number one, I think his color sense is incredible," said downtown St. Petersburg antique store owner Paul Devereaux. 

Devereaux had a chance encounter with McNeil one day and decided to start buying his creations and reselling them at his studio/antiques store.

"And the roosters, if you want them to be, are pretty humorous," Devereaux added.

With the modest success of his rooster art, McNeil has newfound faith it will be a way to support himself and say goodbye to being homeless.

"Sometimes you dig a hole so deep in your own eyes and heart there is no way for you to get out," he said. "I’m out. Let’s put it that way. God has given me something to work with and I want everybody to have a piece of my art."