After pressure by Maxine Waters (D-CA) and the National Law Housing Project, the Government Accountability Office undertook a study to assess HUD’s evaluation of RAD. Succinctly, they found that HUD has not been tracking or evaluating the resident experience of RAD and thus have no way of knowing if or ensuring that resident safeguards and protections are being enforced and abided by.

• “HUD’s focus on the conversion process itself (and less on its results), as well as limitations in HUD’s data, have contributed to limited monitoring by HUD. Specifically, by not developing and implementing monitoring procedures to assess the effect of RAD on residents, HUD cannot ensure compliance with resident safeguards.
• Further, HUD collects and maintains household data for the public housing and Section 8 programs, yet it does not systematically use this information to ensure that resident safeguards are in place.
• Finally, HUD could benefit from additional procedures to assess RAD properties for risks to long-term preservation in order to be able to respond to property default or foreclosure.”

Find Full report here.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition summarized the GAO report. Review summary here.