In the past seven years, Baltimore City has given Live Baltimore Home Center more than $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars, including $250,000 this past March, to promote the benefits of living in Baltimore City to prospective homeowners.
The nonprofit has rolled out very expensive ad campaigns, primarily in the Washington area, hosted tours and homebuying fairs and advertised on the Web. But internally, according to its executive director, it does not track how effective the campaigns have been.
“We don?t have a system in place to determine how effective the ads are,” said Anna Custer, executive director of Live Baltimore Home Center. “I don?t know how we could actually track how many people moved to Baltimore as a result of our ad campaigns other than the census every 10 years.”
“I am shocked,” said Baltimore City Councilman Jack Young, who chairs the City Council?s budget committee. “Any time the city gives money, there should be some kind of tracking system that shows us if it is working or not working.”
“I find her answers to [these] questions totally unacceptable. Everybody has to be accountable for the dollars we give them. I would like to know what?s going on here. We are not in the position to throw away money to something that is not producing results. We should be getting data from them. They should have a mechanism in place with real estate agents to track how many people that they referred to those agents actually bought property in the city,” Young said.
According to Custer, the agreement LBHC has with the city does not spell out providing statistical data on the success or failure of the campaigns. Rather, for 2007, the city told Custer to focus on having more tours and home-buying fairs for the spring and fall, the City Living Resource Guide, educational classes for Baltimore-area real estate agents and meeting operational goals.
“Are you telling me we are just spending money and not getting data on how successful the efforts are?” asked Baltimore City Councilmember Kenneth Harris, who is running for City Council President. “What? We should at least be able to see what our return on the investment is. They should have a tracking system in place to give us tangible results of their success in bringing people to our city. I am shocked and surprised that you cannot get any reports that can demonstrate its effectiveness in the seven years we have funded them. I will follow up.”
