HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program promotes housing opportunities by improving properties for existing residents and creating sustainable, enduring funding for high-quality affordable rental housing. The Wicomico Housing Authority in Maryland was able to use RAD to replace its single public housing development with multiple properties in and around the city of Salisbury, creating new housing opportunities which are more integrated over the entire geography of Wicomico County.
Originally a colonial outpost, today Salsbury is recreating itself with an eye toward entertainment, shopping, road improvement, and beautification. Recognizing that redevelopment can lead to higher housing costs, the city included RAD in its housing plans in order to improve and increase the supply of housing for lower-income residents.
Among other improvements, the need to redevelop the Wicomico Housing Authority’s struggling housing development — then known in Salsbury as the “Booth Street Projects” — was clear. After more than 30 years of service, the city of Salisbury was concerned about the buildings’ visible decline and rising vacancy rates exacerbated by a public housing authority that couldn’t afford to repair and maintain the deteriorating buildings.
A public-private partnership came together to re-imagine the Booth Street property. The newly hired Wicomico Housing Authority Executive Director, Don Bibb, worked closely with Senior Project Manager Patrick Stewart of Pennrose Properties LLC to create two separate housing developments that address the challenges common to residential development construction, while carefully meeting the needs of Salisbury’s current and future low- to middle-income residents.
Upon his arrival at the housing authority, Don Bibb was faced with a portfolio of distressed public housing. He took one look at RAD and recognized an opportunity he hadn’t seen in his 45 years working in public housing. RAD became a “salvation for the community,” he said, and the primary catalyst that “transformed an amazing scenario of blight-into-beautification.”
In January 2016, the housing authority began the much-needed demolition of the “Booth Street Projects” and a $37.4 million, two-phase redevelopment that would replace 100 low-income townhome units with 159 new modern, energy-efficient, affordable apartments.
The new community of Stone Grove Crossing arose on the Booth Street site, and was move-in ready only 14 months after the first demolition. Fifty of the new units were one-for-one replacement housing, and an additional 34 units were funded using the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. These one-, two-, and three-bedroom units reflect the household needs identified in a local housing market analysis, and all units meet National Green Building Standards and Energy Star certification.
Construction of the second RAD community, similar in design to Stone Grove Crossing, began in December 2018. Named for its central square, Square at Merritt Mill has 75 apartments, 67 of them affordable rental homes. Fifty units are one-for-one replacements (meaning that the housing authority has preserved the same number of affordable dwelling units); 17 are new LIHTC units; and eight are new market-rate units. Square at Merritt Mill is close to amenities and the city center, and like Stone Grove Crossing it meets National Green Building Standards and Energy Star certification.
Looking to the Future
Today these two developments are home to families, seniors, and individuals who benefit from access to high-quality housing, services, and proximity to the economic opportunities available in Salisbury and throughout Wicomico County. Improving the quality of housing has changed the face of the neighborhood, and the effects of the redevelopment have created a strong sense of value in the community. Flora White, after watching the new buildings rise on the site of the “Booth Street Projects,” was one of a group of ten friends who moved into Stone Grove Crossing within a few weeks of its opening.
Flora White believes that the developers and the housing authority built the development with residents’ needs carefully considered. “I love it here,” she says. “It's nice. I would recommend it to anybody who wanted to come. It’s a nice community, convenient for the stores and stuff. You’re just around the corner from everything. You have a lot of space in the kitchen and have a nice-sized living room. You don't have to go out to do your laundry, which is a lifesaver for me because I don't drive anymore.”
Just as Flora was drawn to Stone Grove, DaQuante Holliday was attracted to the design of Square at Merritt Mill. “I was like, ‘Oh, what are they building over there?’ she said. “And then once I saw it was an apartment complex, I came right on in and got me a little application.” She was just the second resident at Square at Merritt Mill, moving in with her three children. A far cry from the past, she says, “my neighbors are really nice. Everyone is nice, respectful. I like living here. Especially where I came from. It's a huge, big, big difference for me.”
With the help of RAD, these redevelopment projects have begun to reshape the lives of Salisbury’s low- to middle-income residents. The renewed sense of pride and potential has engendered community activity such as financial literacy programs and after-school programs at Stone Grove Crossing. The residents participate in a Christmas tree program, food drives, and food pantries open to all. Though most programs were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, these activities as well as card games and book clubs once prized by residents are returning to the developments’ community centers.
The impact of Wicomico Housing Authority's use of RAD is only beginning. Since the opening of Stone Grove Crossing and Square at Merritt Mill, its investments are continuing to be made across the Salisbury area. The next RAD application was to renovate 90 scattered-site homes to create opportunities for low-income residents to live near family or workplaces, while ensuring they are geographically distributed to guarantee that affordable housing is not overly concentrated in one particular area across the county.
WHAT IS RAD?
The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) is a program of the Office of Recapitalization in the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs at HUD. Authorized in 2011, RAD allows public housing agencies and owners of other HUD-assisted properties to convert units from their original sources of HUD financing to project-based Section 8 contracts. These new contracts provide a more reliable source of operating subsidy that enables property owners to leverage private and public capital, such as debt and equity, to finance new construction and/or rehabilitation of rental housing. Meanwhile, residents benefit from consultation prior to conversion, have a right to return after any construction, and maintain ongoing rights guaranteeing the affordability of the housing.