Housing for poor gets big boost

``A new federal housing program to fund rental housing for the extremely poor is being hailed by local housing advocates as a groundbreaking event. 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. ''