A specialist funder of some form dedicated to directing increased investment toward social housing may be gathering supporters.In some PR previewed by Fairfax Media, the body representing Australia's not-for profit community housing associations will today release a proposal for the creation of a financial intermediary to match big investors with new affordable rental housing projects.Treasury officials working on a Housing Affordability Working Group may be open to driving forward a stale consultation process (that wrapped up earlier this year) now the the federal election is out of the way.The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute is among a network of cooperatives and housing associations that have for years championed federally sanctioned housing bonds as a means to ease rental stress.If the submissions to Treasury from banks are any guide, a so-called yield gap - itself a function of link rents to income - will have to be covered (or subsidised) to ensure the interest payments on housing bonds are commercial.