Inspired in part by the media spotlight on the so-called “praying robber,” Mayor Greg Ballard stood Friday with two dozen social service providers and urged people facing financial crises to get help.

“Personal hardships do not justify criminal behavior,” Ballard said, but “some of our residents are struggling more than ever, and many who need assistance don’t know where to turn.”

The mayor’s remarks came just weeks before the holiday shopping season, typically a time of increased crime.

“Robberies are always up in November and December, every year,” said William Benjamin, deputy chief of investigations for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

Ballard said people in desperate financial straits often approach him to tell him crime is their only option.

“But that’s not true,” Ballard said. “There are all these organizations that can help.”

The social service providers include the Indiana 211 Partnership, a help line for referrals.

The “praying bandit” might have used some of that help before he gained the nickname.

On Oct. 19, Gregory Smith, 23, Indianapolis, told a payday-loan store’s clerk he had a 2-year-old child to support, prayed with the clerk, then robbed her of $20 and her cell phone, according to robbery charges filed against him.

On Oct. 23, Smith’s family appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” while Smith talked on camera from a Marion County jail, where he remained Friday on $50,000 bond.

On Sunday, his mother and several siblings are expected to worship at Light of the World Christian Church, where a collection will be taken for them.

“This is a good teaching opportunity, to tell people that are suffering financially that the solution is to get help and not to take other people’s money,” said Mmoja Ajabu, a church minister.

Douglas S. Hairston, the director of the mayor’s Front Porch Alliance, said that while crime in Indianapolis is down 9 percent since June, addresses in the Westside Haughville neighborhood and the city’s Eastside have had an uptick in robberies and burglaries lately.

“We attribute those crimes to people in need,” Hairston said.