The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) is a voluntary program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). RAD seeks to preserve public housing by providing Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) with access to more stable funding to make needed improvements to properties. Public housing units across the country need more than $26 billion in repairs. HUD refers to these repair costs as capital needs. Congress has not provided enough funding for PHAs to keep up with capital needs. As a result, PHAs have had to make tough choices between things like repairing roofs and replacing plumbing—or worse, demolishing public housing. RAD provides PHAs a way to rehabilitate, or repair, units without depending on additional money from Congress.
