The first words on the sign — “VACANT PROPERTY” — posted on the front door of a boarded-up rowhouse in Baltimore’s Upton neighborhood may overstate the obvious: The two-story brick home, its front steps sandwiched between tall weeds and a pile of garbage, clearly hasn’t been inhabited for some time. But the QR code sitting in the sign’s bottom right corner is a window to a trove of more expansive information about this building, Bloomberg News reported. Scanning the pattern with a smartphone camera directs the user to a city web page linking to databases on property ownership, building permits, pending court cases and more. While this information is all publicly available, not everyone knows how to navigate these assorted city and state data portals. The QR code signs are being installed by the city on its 17,000-plus properties with vacant building notices. It’s a practical evolution of a project that began as an artistic collaboration: Back in 2013, Baltimore housing activist Carol Ott and a troupe of street artists launched an effort called Wall Hunters, painting murals on vacant buildings that were accompanied by QR codes that led users to information about the building’s owner on Ott’s blog, Baltimore Slumlord Watch. Several new tools are aiming to confront opaque systems that tend to benefit property owners at neighbors’ and tenants’ expense. Some, like Baltimore’s QR code program, boost transparency and help the public hold property owners and landlords accountable. Others are advocate-led projects that aim to shine a spotlight on serial evictors, ward off the long-dreaded eviction cliff of forced displacement, and help tenants weather the huge spike in rents affecting cities nationwide.
