Already struggling to provide Utah families with affordable housing, cash-poor housing authorities are looking at more budget cuts that could eat into rental assistance for the elderly and disabled. Under a five-year spending plan endorsed by President Bush, as many as 398 fewer families in Utah will receive Section 8 rental assistance in 2005, according to a national study released Friday by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington D.C. The report notes the president's budget would temporarily restore about half those vouchers in 2006, but then proposes cuts in virtually all domestic programs through 2010. By that year, 1,830 fewer rent vouchers are projected to be available in Utah - a 20 percent drop. But the most alarming finding of the study, say low-income advocates, is that the elderly and disabled could lose assistance. "We were initially under the impression that those groups would be held harmless. But now we're told [that] to protect them and not families would be a form of discrimination," said Tim Funk, housing director at Crossroads Urban Center. Utah's homeless population is about 4,500. About 27,300 households are on waiting lists for housing assistance. - Kirsten Stewart