Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD)

How It Works

Public housing has a large backlog of repairs that annual federal capital funding has not covered. The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) is one response. RAD lets a public housing agency move a property off the public housing program and onto a long-term Section 8 contract.

A converting property chooses one of two contract types:

• Project-based vouchers (PBV), which the housing agency’s voucher program administers.
• Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA), which HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs oversees.

Initial contracts run 15 or 20 years, and HUD’s 2025 guidance states that each contract must be renewed when it expires. RAD provides no new federal funding. Instead, the public housing operating and capital subsidy a property already received becomes its Section 8 rent. Because that income stream is contractual and long-term, lenders and investors are willing to finance renovations against it. Financing can include private mortgages and equity from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.

RAD has two parts. The first component covers public housing and is subject to a unit cap. The second component has no cap. It lets owners of certain older privately owned HUD-assisted properties convert, including Rent Supplement, Rental Assistance Payment, Moderate Rehabilitation and Section 202 PRAC properties. Congress added Section 811 PRAC properties in FY2022, but NLIHC’s 2026 guide reported that HUD had not yet issued final guidance for those conversions.

Who It Serves

RAD serves the people already living in converting properties, who are mostly extremely low- and very low-income households. The RAD statute and HUD’s RAD Notice set out protections for them:

• No rescreening of current residents, and no permanent involuntary displacement.
• A right to return after temporary relocation during construction.
• Rent generally stays at 30% of adjusted income. If conversion would raise a household’s rent by more than 10% or $25, whichever is greater, the increase is phased in over three to five years.
• Leases must be renewed unless the owner has good cause, a form of just-cause eviction protection.
• Choice mobility. After one year in a PBV property, or two years in a PBRA property, a resident can request a tenant-based voucher and move if one is available.

How to Access It

Residents do not apply to RAD. Housing agencies and owners apply to HUD, submit a financing plan, and sign a new Housing Assistance Payments contract at closing. Agencies must hold resident meetings and give written notices at several stages.

History

HUD designed RAD in 2010 and 2011 in consultation with public housing resident leaders. According to NLIHC, the department wanted to avoid the harms to residents associated with HOPE VI. Congress authorized RAD in the FY2012 HUD appropriations act, signed in November 2011, with an initial cap of 60,000 units.

Congress raised the cap to 185,000 units in FY2015, 225,000 in FY2017 and 455,000 in FY2018. The FY2018 act also added Section 202 PRAC properties. HUD’s Supplemental Notice 4C, posted in January 2025 and effective in June 2025, carried out a 2024 law that extended the application deadline to September 30, 2029. It also lengthened the notice period for evictions over unpaid rent from 14 to 30 days.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (Public Law 119-101), enacted July 11, 2026, removed the end date entirely and raised the cap to 555,000 units. It also requires HUD to publish annual findings on how public housing conversions affect tenants and lets HUD impose civil money penalties for material violations of RAD requirements.

As of October 1, 2025, NLIHC reported that 188,493 public housing units had converted and another 195,135 had preliminary approval or were reserved for future conversion. Under the second component, all 28,860 Rent Supplement and Rental Assistance Payment units had converted, along with 11,970 Moderate Rehabilitation units and 4,810 Section 202 PRAC units.

Limitations

• Enforcement concerns. NLIHC and other tenant advocates say HUD has not consistently monitored compliance with tenant protections, leaving residents to press housing agencies and owners to honor them.
• Possible unit loss. HUD allows agencies to reduce assisted units by up to 5% or five units, whichever is greater, without seeking separate HUD approval. Some units, such as those vacant for two or more years, do not count toward that limit.
• Long-term sustainability. During the initial contract, rents generally rise only by HUD’s annual Operating Cost Adjustment Factor. In 2025, HUD added a process for properties to seek a waiver from that limit.
• Still being studied. At Congress’s request, HUD sponsored five studies of RAD’s implementation, its effects on tenants and its long-term preservation of affordability. The 2026 law adds a requirement for annual published assessments.

See Public Housing in America for the broader history of public housing and its repositioning.