Section 18 Blends
The Rental Assistance Demonstration, known as RAD, is a program out of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that seeks to preserve and improve certain kinds of affordable housing subsidized by HUD. RAD allows Public Housing Authorities to convert Public Housing (PH) into Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs), previously known as Section 8 Rental Assistance.
There are several pathways a public housing authority may consider when converting their public housing.
One way of repositioning is known as RAD/Section 18.
There are two kinds of RAD/Section 18 Blends, a Construction Blend and a Small PHA Blend.
These RAD/Section 18 Blends allow for:
- Higher contract rents support greater financing
- Robust resident rights
- RAD one-for-one replacement requirements apply (with de minimis)
- Public housing funds can be used in project conversion
- HUD underwriting of entire project to ensure project viability
For a Construction Blend, HUD approves a portion of units under Section 18, to be replaced with Project-Based Voucher, based on level of rehab/construction achieved.
For a Small PHA Blend, any PHA with 250 or fewer public housing units under its ACC, at the PHA's discretion up to eighty percent (80%) of the units in a Converting Project may be disposed under Section 18. The PHA must submit a repositioning plan to HUD showing how it will remove all of its public housing units. Any PBV contract must be administered by a PHA operating at least 250 HCV units.
For more information on RAD Section 18 blends, please click here to visit the HUD Website.
