HUD Posts Seven New RAD Factsheets for Residents

HUD’s Office of Recapitalization (Recap) posted an additional seven fact sheets addressing the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and designed for public housing residents. The new fact sheets complement eight fact sheets posted earlier this month by Recap (see Memo, 2/7).   

The seven new fact sheets, #9-#15, are: “RAD and Relocation,” “Resident Grievance and Termination Rights,” “Family Self-Sufficiency and Resident Opportunities and Self-Sufficiency,” “Choice Mobility,” “RAD and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit,” “RAD and Section 18 Disposition Blends,” and “RAD and Resident Employment (Section 3).”

The previous eight fact sheets are: “RAD Overview,” “Overview of Resident Rights after RAD Conversion,” “The RAD Conversion Process,” “The Difference Between Project-Based Vouchers (PBV) and Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA),” “Resident Engagement and Consultation,” “Rent,” “Your Lease,” and “Resident Organizing and Funding.”

As part of the “FY12 HUD Appropriations Act,” Congress authorized the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) to help preserve and improve public housing and other HUD-assisted housing. RAD allows public housing agencies (PHAs) and owners of private, HUD-assisted housing to leverage Section 8 rental assistance contracts to raise private debt and equity for capital improvements. RAD has two components, the first of which pertains to public housing, the subject of the new Recap fact sheets.

Like the previous fact sheets, the new fact sheets provide well-formatted, easy-to-read overviews of RAD features with which residents should be acquainted.

NLIHC is particularly pleased to observe that the “RAD and Relocation” fact sheet includes information that was left out of earlier RAD fact sheets but that is included in “RAD Notice Revision 4: H 2019-09 PIH 2019-23.” Drawing on the notice, which provides what is essentially a RAD regulation, the fact sheet states the following: “If the public housing authority (PHA) proposes a plan for the property that would mean you could not return to the property (this scenario is rare), you must be given an opportunity to comment and/or object. The housing authority may offer you another affordable housing option, but you are not required to accept one of these other options. If you object because you want to return to the property, the plans must be changed.”

NLIHC also reminds readers of the “RAD and Resident Employment (Section 3)” fact sheet that while the information included in the sheet is accurate, employment opportunities for jobs previously held by PHA staff – such as central office employee, janitor, maintenance crew employee, painter, grounds crew employee, etc. – are lost after conversion.

Read the new fact sheets at: https://www.hud.gov/RAD/impact

View a basic five-minute video intended to explain RAD to residents whose PHA is considering converting their public housing development under RAD at: https://bit.ly/3rkHKFo

Find HUD’s RAD website at: https://www.hud.gov/RAD

Read more about RAD and RAD/Section 18 Blends on NLIHC’s public housing webpage at RAD: Key Features for Public Housing Residents and on page 4-40 of NLIHC’s 2021 Advocates’ Guide.

Read more about Section 18 Disposition on NLIHC’s public housing webpage, at Demolition and Disposition, and on page 4-54 of NLIHC’s 2021 Advocates’ Guide.

Read more about Section 3 on NLIHC’s public housing webpage at “Final Section 3 Rule, 2020” and on page 7-45 of NLIHC’s 2021 Advocates’ Guide.

Read more about the Low Income Housing Tax Credit on page 5-17 of NLIHC’s 2021 Advocates’ Guide.

Learn more about RAD from the National Housing Law Project at: https://bit.ly/3ujEvAb