Hello, my name is Anton George, I'm 54 years old, and as you can see, it's terrible back
here.
It's so frustrating when the government won't acknowledge the problem, you cannot fix what
the government won't acknowledge.
Back in the day, when I was a kid, coming up, all these houses were lived in.
Every house around here was lived in.
My grandma lived here, my aunt lived there.
The whole block was full of nothing but people, but now there's no one who lives here.
It's only four people, you know what I mean?
A vacant property is uninhabitable.
Nobody can live in it or use it for anything.
If you see a red X sign on the front of the vacant, it means that if the vacant catches
on fire, the firemen are not supposed to go in.
I don't like looking out my back window and that's what I see now.
They're not just eyesores, they're dangerous.
Vacants are a disgrace to our city.
Julia and I are not from Baltimore, and we were both fascinated by the dynamic culture
but disturbed by local problems such as the vacant houses.
We had a lot of questions.
First, we did our research.
We interviewed multiple city officials to get their perspectives on the issues facing our city.
What's the future of this place?
What is it going to look like in 10 years?
Are the vacant houses going to get any attention?
That brought us to search for what it is that Baltimore finds beautiful.
Is it as simple as cleaning up streets and putting artwork up to spread a message of hope?
Or is it as complicated as giving somebody whose family history is rooted in this city
a means for them to share their story and feel like they are able to see their city restored?
We took the camera to the streets to see what it looked like up close and through our lenses.
That's how we met Nether and Carol and decided to help them to shed light on some neglected issues
with the added power of street art.
When I first met Carol, I was really inspired by the hope that she gave people.
She reminds them that they're not alone in this fight.
My project, Baltimore Slumlord Watch, works via social media, advocacy and lobbying.
When I go out to find vacant properties, I meet neighbors who feel helpless watching their communities deteriorate.
I work with city agencies and other organizations and individuals within the city to help combat the blight
and also to give the residents the tools and the education that they need to help fix these problems on their own.
A group of artists and I founded a nonprofit called Wall Hunters to launch a project that mixes art and activism.
We will get together 15 artists to install pieces on specific properties.
Next to the artwork, there will be text descriptions and QR codes linking to ownership information on the Slumlord Watch website
so people can dig deeper.
I was really impressed when I met Nether.
He's extremely dedicated to the project.
He draws attention to the vacants and makes them look better.
The people he meets become the subject of his art and therefore it brings the community together.
We need to encourage conversation here.
We have already raised $12,000 and used public interest projects as our fiscal sponsor.
Although this is a good start, this isn't enough.
The artists are donating their time, money and we want to pay them decently.
The documentary is extremely important because it can spread the message to a much wider audience.
Their film is crucial. It documents the most important part, how we include community members in the process and raise awareness.
After filming neighborhoods and getting to know the people who lived in them, we were hooked.
And we decided we had no choice.
We are filmmakers and we had to make a documentary, not only about the grim problems facing Charm City,
but the innovative and creative solutions that makes it such an extortional place.
And we're asking for your help to make this film as great as it can be.
I would love to see this neighborhood look like it looked maybe 30 years ago.
And I believe that could happen if we all stuck together.
So far we have reached 60% of the funding needed to continue this project.
We need another 40.
We've been working passionately for the last few months really since the grant started being written
to film it, to get the artists on board and to do every other component of the project.
Thank you for your support.
