Something, or someone, has to give. Hopefully, it will be the state Legislature.

The Utah Poverty Partnership, noting that Utah needs an additional 51,000 affordable rental units for low-income residents, has a solution. Alcohol. But the partnership's proposal has nothing to do with the drowning of sorrows.

The partnership wants to tap a portion of the profits from skyrocketing sales at state liquor stores to support the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund, which lends money to developers and builders who construct affordable housing for the poor.

After expenses and mandated payments to the state's school lunch program, state liquor stores pumped $53.2 million into the general fund last year, an increase of nearly $6 million over 2006. Diverting a portion of those profits to bolster the loan fund makes sense.

The revolving loan fund is a true success story, responsible for the construction or preservation of more than 9,000 affordable homes and apartments since its inception in 1987, including 713 housing units in fiscal 2007. As loans are repaid, more loans are made. But the underfunded program can't keep pace with a growing demand.

Each year, Utah housing advocates say, an additional 2,500 Utah families need affordable rental units, and recent spikes in rent - 8.8 percent in Salt Lake County last year - are making a bad situation worse.

According to the Utah Community Action Partnership Association's 2008 poverty report, 38 percent of renters in Utah are unable to afford two-bedroom housing at the fair market rate of $585 per month. That means they're forced to live in substandard housing, or cut back on other necessities to make ends meet. That has to change.

The Poverty Partnership will present its proposal to the Legislature's Workforce Services and Community and Economic Development Interim Committee Sept. 17. And lawmakers would be wise to lend the housing loan fund a hand, particularly since any increase could be used to leverage federal money through the new National Housing Trust Fund.

The federal program requires local matching funds, and if Olene Walker's cupboards are bare, the state will risk leaving federal funds on the table. Worse, it will risk leaving impoverished Utahns out in the cold.