New Ways To Save For A House

(CBS)  Just under 70 percent of American families own their homes. But it can be awfully tough for many working Americans who live paycheck-to-paycheck to save enough for that all-important down payment.

That's where a network of local programs comes in — to help people learn how to save and give them a boost toward their goal.

Thirty-two-year-old Maria Cruz is raising four boys on her own. There's Evan. The inquisitive one — he's Darius. Marquis likes to show off. And Andrew, well, he's a teenager now. For the past year — for the first time ever — they've had a home of their own, reports CBS News correspondent Thalia Assuras.

"I can't believe it," says Cruz. "This is me. I own this. I keep saying that to myself all the time."

Maria is a medical assistant who earns $25,000 a year — not enough to buy a house. That changed when she spotted a savings and education program for low-income working families called "Individual Development Accounts" at her local community center. It was a way to start saving.

"My goal every month was at least $100," she says.

For every dollar Maria managed to put away, her local IDA program — one of almost 500 across the country — provided $3 in matching funds from federal, state and private sources.

"I saved $1,333 and IDA matched me four grand," Cruz says.

In some states, IDAs are even more generous — up to eight times a participant's savings. The trick is learning how to save. That know-how comes from eight weeks of mandatory financial education classes. The incentives: cash for a college education, starting a small business or, as in Maria's case, a down payment on a first home.

"The more I saved, the more I was gonna better myself," Cruz says. "In my heart, I was choosing a home."

The philosophy, originally developed by a professor at Washington University, is that the best way to get ahead is to save money and acquire assets. IDAs are a first for the country's poor — incentives similar to the tax breaks or mortgage deductions that middle- and upper-class Americans have benefited from for years.

"We've seen, historically, in this country, that you build wealth by building assets. It's a new way to approach poverty," said Andrea Levere. She runs the Corporation for Enterprise Development, which coordinates the IDA programs and is pushing new legislation that would boost the current 50,000 IDAs to almost 900,000.

Levere contends that skeptics who say IDAs are kind of a welfare program.

"The way we like to say it is that this is a hand up, not a handout. Without his or her initiative, it wouldn't work at all," she says.

It has helped Cruz leave public housing ... and given her more than a house.

"If they see this coming from me, they're gonna do better themselves," she says.

That's the kind of pride and purpose she is now passing on to her children.