Pathways to Wealth Conference

The last couple of days I've been to a conference on asset building. It was hosted by the IDA and Asset Buildling Collaborative of North Carolina and EITC Carolinas. There were many workshops about the differing types of financial literacy curriculums, how to set-up IDA's, how to promote entrepreneurial businesses. The conference also reminded me that over the years the federal government promotes asset building and gives people opportunities to build their assets. However, the types of opportunities depend on who you are and what kind of assets you already have.
One of the presenters was a woman by the name of Meizhu Lui, the Executive Director of United for a Fair Economy and co-author of The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the Racial Wealth Inequality. She used a slide that really struck me about housing. In one column showing the federal government's investment of $70B for Home Mortgage Interest Deductions and the other column showing the $24.5 B that is spent on Homeless Assistance, Public Housing and Section 8 housing. I simply forgot that every time I take my interest deduction on my taxes I get a government benefit. When I bought my first home, I qualified for a Mortgage Credit, that was a government benefit. It seems a bit unfair to me that the more expensive a home and the larger mortgage you have the greater benefit you get to help you build your own personal wealth. It seems interesting then that if you have no assets, the assistance you receive is simply to maintain housing rather than as an incentive to try to build your own assets and invest in owning a home or renting on your own.