In “Austin Goes All in with RAD” Affordable Housing Finance’s Donna Kimura covers the Housing Authority of the City of Austin’s (HACA) progress in converting its 1,839 public housing units to project-based rental assistance through the RAD program. Now 80 percent complete after three years, HACA is on track to complete its portfolio conversion in the next year and a half.
“RAD was used as a tool to essentially make meaningful and significant improvements for the residents that we serve,” HACA COO Sylvia Blanco told Affordable Housing Finance. “Under the traditional public housing resource and capital fund program, it would have taken decades to make the improvements. We’ve been able to do it in a fraction of the time.”
HACA has engaged a variety of partners and financing strategies during this process, most notably working with Fannie Mae to help finance 13 of HACA’s 16 RAD conversions thus far and using 4% and 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.