It is the first new federal housing program targeting the poorest of the poor in decades, Tim Funk, Crossroads Urban Center housing advocacy director, said Thursday.

Bundled within Congress' recent mortgage relief legislation, the new national housing trust fund was overshadowed by the effort to bail out struggling homeowners. But its passage could mean big dollars for Utah - as much as $3 million or more, Funk said.

Although exactly how the money will be distributed remains unclear, at least 90 percent of the funds must be used for rental housing production, preservation, rehabilitation, or operation. A percentage of new business at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, mortgage lending businesses, will fund the trust fund. Money will not be available in Utah until 2010.

Housing advocates say the money will build on the efforts of Utah's Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund, which awards grants and loans toward the purchase, construction and renovation of affordable apartments and single-family homes.

Money from the national trust fund will have to be matched locally, Funk said.

Rising rent costs and a two- to three-year wait for the federal housing voucher program known as Section 8 have left Utah's poorest scrambling to find enough money to pay the landlord. Salt Lake County rental rates increased 8.8 percent last year, the biggest rise in a decade, according to Apartment Realty Advisors.

There is a critical need for more affordable housing in Utah, agreed Gordon Walker, state housing and community development director. Based on a state analysis, Utah needs several thousand more low-income rental units each year to meet the population's need.

"The housing trust fund money will only be a very good thing for the state," he said. "We just don't know how much or what the specifics are."

Locally, advocates collected signatures of support for the trust fund over the past several years from legislators, religious leaders and others across the state.

"We wanted our congressional delegates to understand this is not only an urban problem, it's a rural problem," said Linda Hilton, director of the Coalition of Religious Communities, referring to the affordable-housing squeeze in towns such as Moab and Park City.

jlyon@sltrib.com