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ars following World War II, many white Americans began to move away from inner cities to newer suburban communities, a process known as white flight. White flight occurred, in part, as a response to black people moving into white urban neighborhoods. Discriminatory practices, especially those intended to 'preserve' emerging white suburbs, restricted the ability of blacks to move from inner cities to suburbs, even when they were economically able to afford it.

Definition of Poverty
The definition of poverty in an urban poor community rotates around dynamic and multidimensional concepts that include the notion of security, well-being and self respect. Integrative to the concept of poverty is that of vulnerability which means long-term nature of deprivation which is further access to assets and ownership of assets like labour, human capital, housing and infrastructure, household and social capital. Therefore, one may argue that urban poverty may not exist in terms of poverty line demarcation but exists because of the vulnerability of the urban residents due to the lack of assets such as land, housing or human capital endowments. (Fanfan; 2000).

Poverty trap
People living in the 'residual' neighborhoods are often trapped in the vicious circle of poverty which reduces their choices and ability to move from one area and to build convenient houses, Taylor (1995) point out that poverty is the root of many other problems for residents of deprived regions. She argues that the fact that these residential areas are on the fridge of the cities they are away from all economic activities, thus denying the residents viable jobs. This has an impact on the motivation and achievement of the people.

Consequently, this creates pressures in family and community life leading to tensions between neighbours. The interaction of these pressures makes the problems difficult to solve and eventually this ends in the spiral of decline and despair. In turn, the spiral of decline and despair culminate with a lack of political power, no attractive market to quality goods and services, poor access to jobs and capital, poor health, low self-esteem and crime reinforcing the stereotyping of isolation facing their particular neighbourhood.

Marginalization in social housing
Housing is one of the scarce resources which determine the general quality of life of an individual. According to Jenny Morris et al (1990), a home possesses important physical characteristics namely: space, number of rooms, heating and insulation, state of repair and the environment surrounding the home. Raquel Rolnik, UN Special Reporter, on the other side believes that a home is not a commodity built up of four walls and a room; it is a place to live in security, dignity and is a right for every human being.

A home must be accessible to disadvantaged groups including elderly, children, physically disabled, the terminally ill, HIV positive individuals, persons with persistent medical problems, mentally ill, victims of natural disasters, people living in disaster- prone area and others. Furthermore, housing means more that a shelter as it provides it's occupancy with privacy, a place for leisure and is a secure area.

Housing situations are important facets in an individual's general experience of advantage and disadvantage. It is also an important factor in any consideration of inequality because