Land-locked between Interstate 30, Interstate 35W, and U.S. Highway 287 on the edge of downtown Fort Worth, Texas, Butler Place is Fort Worth Housing Solutions' (FWHS’s) oldest remaining housing property. FWHS is in the process of repositioning its portfolio of public housing properties due to the high cost of maintaining dated housing, the desire to create more mixed-income communities in the areas where its assistance is located, and, in the case of Butler Place, reducing the isolation of residents from schools, transportation, and job centers. The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) is critical to this plan to develop new communities across Fort Worth, and its effort to affirmatively further fair housing.
“I’m hoping to get a place that’s got a playground, somewhere [my grandkids] can play and get out more.” —Anna, former Butler Place resident and current resident at The Standard at Boswell
Through RAD, the Housing Authority has been able to generate the funding to acquire, rehabilitate, and newly construct affordable housing and to offer residents the ability to move to new apartment homes throughout Fort Worth. In the case of Butler Place, the Housing Authority is transferring the assistance across 13 transactions, so that at each site there is a more balanced mix of affordable housing and market rate housing than at Butler Place, which was a concentrated pocket of poverty and deeply subsidized housing. The residents of Butler Place will have the opportunity to move to more than 13 mixed-income apartment communities that FWHS has either developed or acquired. As a result of RAD, residents will have better access to transportation, jobs, schools, and other amenities in diverse neighborhoods across the city.
Deconcentrating Poverty in Fort Worth
FWHS’s strategy for deconcentrating poverty seeks to give residents the opportunity to live in neighborhoods of opportunity with greater access to jobs, schools and transportation. In their first effort to reduce the concentration of its affordable housing stock, pre-RAD, the agency wanted to purchase a 558-unit property in a centrally located neighborhood. FWHS sought to convert this property to a mix of affordable and market-rate rental units. When this project was a success, the housing authority’s Board of Commissioners used this transaction as a model for how to create mixed-income communities within its portfolio.
The support from the city of Fort Worth and the collaboration with HUD’s Office of Recapitalization in solving challenges were critical to FHWS’ plans. According to Brian Dennison, senior vice president for Development and Asset Management at FWHS, the key ingredient was the strong support in every way by the FWHS Board of Commissioners, HUD, and other partners.
The Butler Place Relocation Project
Butler Place was built in 1940 to create low-income housing through the Public Works Administration under President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Sitting on 42 acres, at full occupancy Butler Place has housed more than 1,000 residents in 412 units within 68 buildings. The units in Butler Place were upgraded in the 1960s, and have since become outdated. RAD has propelled the Housing Authority’s efforts to transform Butler Place in order to meet FWHS’ goal to transform the face of public housing.
Utilizing the RAD Transfer of Assistance tool, subsidy will move from Butler Place to 13 newly built and acquired properties across the Fort Worth area. Seven of the properties receiving the transfers of assistance are new construction and the rest are acquisitions. As the new units are completed, FWHS shares information with Butler Place residents about the property, the location, and the community.
Interested residents put their name into the drawing for an available unit and are selected by lottery to relocate to the new property. Residents first began moving into their new homes in December of 2017. The entire construction and relocation phases of this multi-transaction process were scheduled to take four to six years.
In total, the Housing Authority through RAD will be creating more than 6,784 units of housing across Fort Worth, including leveraging the transactions to create more than 5,302 units of affordable units (LIHTC and PBVs), 698 RAD units and 784 market-rate units. RAD has enabled Fort Worth Housing Solutions to preserve affordable housing for the existing Butler Place residents as well as create new opportunities for affordable housing in high-opportunity, mixed-income neighborhoods.
The Benefits of RAD for Butler Place Residents
Through RAD, the previous 412 units at Butler Place have been or will be converted from public housing to Project-Based Rental Assistance contracts at the new sites. This plan has decentralized low-income units at Butler Place, removing pockets of poverty and affording lower-income residents much greater opportunities. The conversion of the Butler Place units ensures that each resident can move to a new, affordable apartment home that truly suits their needs.
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.