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Newspaper articles showed up across the country in June as a result of a 20-group coordinated effort to get out the word on the need for more affordable rental housing.

A $5 billion surplus in the FHA fund could help low-income tenants, neighborhood groups and housing advocates who teamed up to release a report showing just how badly the country needs the money and how far the funds would go toward resolving the problem.

The booming economy and reforms at the Federal Housing Administration resulted in a record $5 billion surplus in FHA funds this year. The surplus resulted because more people bought homes and fewer went into foreclosure. While the president has asked for a report on what to do with the money which is due out in July, some 20 groups around the country held meetings and news conferences around the country in late June to unveil a study co-released by National Training and Information Center and a San Francisco-based advocacy group, Housing America.

The study showed that $5 billion could build nearly 200,000 new units of affordable rental housing across the country. It also broke down that 200,000 figure to show how much money and how many new apartments the money would pay for in selected cities.

If added to HUD's HOME block grant program, as the study suggests, the $5 billion surplus would increase the HOME budget by 500 percent. The study recommended targeting the surplus funds to working families who make 30 percent of their area median income to insure that the affordable housing the $5 billion would go to create goes to those who most need it.

While industry leaders and government officials have increasingly focused on boosting home ownership, the pool of affordable housing units has shrunk. 5.4 million American families live in substandard housing or are homeless, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development study released in April.

"The HOME program is regarded as the best housing program out there. It insists on a local share and allows states and communities local control. It has none of the baggage of other federal housing programs because it is cost-effective and it really works," said Randy Shaw of Housing America.