The Rental Assistance Demonstration Program and Its Current and Projected Consumption of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits

Alex Schwartz
The New School

Kirk McClure
University of Kansas

The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program is the nation’s latest and largest initiative to preserve public housing. Launched in 2012, RAD transfers public housing units to another federal subsidy program, Project-based Section 8, to benefit from a more stable stream of federal subsidy dollars and leverage this subsidy to finance essential capital improvements.1 In addition, RAD also preserves housing built under selected older federal subsidy programs. RAD is currently authorized to convert 455,000 units of public housing, and all of the remaining housing supported with such subsidies as Rent Supplements, RAP, and Section 8 Mod Rehab, to project-based Section 8.