The Wall Hunters have found a decent use for QR codes: battling blighted properties in Baltimore.
A collaboration among several street artists and Carol Ott, proprietor of the Baltimore Slumlord Watch blog, the group has painted murals on about a dozen vacant buildings in the city so far this summer. Each mural is accompanied by a QR code that directs mural viewers to a corresponding page on Ott’s Slumlord Watch blog, where she catalogs information on vacant properties, including the negligent landlords who own them.
Read Technically Baltimore’s interview with Carol Ott.
From the Baltimore Sun story about the Wall Hunters:
Housing activist Carol S. Ott, who since 2009 has used her blog, Baltimore Slumlord Watch, to highlight hundreds of run-down and neglected properties, launched the mural project with [street artist] “Nether.”
While [Nether] recruited artists for the project, Ott researched owners of the vacant properties, looking for housing or safety code violations, lawsuits, fines and histories of neglect. Alongside each mural, the group posted a QR, or quick response, code that leads to a post on the Baltimore Slumlord Watch blog with more information about the properties. The artists even incorporated Wall Hunters Inc., as a tax-exempt entity; Nethercut said it was funded by an anonymous donor.
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