Mayor issues statements on recent homelessness, urban farming dramatics

Efforts to raise awareness of homelessness and implement urban farming tax breaks would cause a severe lack of poor people to express contempt towards, a spokesperson for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said.

During a weekly press conference, spokesperson Ryan O’Dougherty defended the Mayor’s decision to send National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week participants away from War Memorial Plaza this past November, citing the homeless population as a mental health issue.

“Homeless people are society’s Zoloft,” O’Dougherty said. “When citizens see them on TV, ignore them on the streets or tell them to get a job they feel better about themselves. If there were no homeless, citizens would find things wrong with the city. Who would want that?”

O’Dougherty also questioned advocates of a 100% tax break to urban farmers which could help solve the food desert crisis currently facing the city.

“Regarding the farming tax break, the last thing this City needs is more assistance to those well to off farmers. Did you know that they don’t even pay for the food that they’ve grown? That’s basically stealing.”

When asked about the Mayor’s empathy, O’Dougherty cited her recent donations to charity to prove she cares.

“In a time of the greatest budget crisis’s’s ever, Mayor Rawlings-Blake took a bold stance by voting to give herself a raise, then giving that same raise to the needy. That’s a good precedent. Not like those urban farms, which set a bad precedent.”

O’Dougherty closed the interview, citing the urgency of having those with needs in the city.

“On her daily jaunt to City Hall, the Mayor peers upon the citizens, insuring she does not engage anyone. If there isn’t a poor or homeless person she sees, she knows something’s wrong.”

In a typed statement released to the press, City Council President Bernard “Jack” Young abstained on the matter, citing a need to “put on some pants” before saying anything.