The headquarters building where Jeeva worked was new. At the front it had high iron railings and large double gates, opened by remote control from the reception office. There was room for about eight VIP cars. The front door was guarded by closed circuit television cameras and an entry phone. From the outside the building looked grandfortified-defended against the outside. People who worked in it had coded plastic cards which unlocked its doors, but tenants of the housing association came to this building as supplicants to a superior power. Once inside, tenants were politely asked to wait while a housing officer was called to come and see them. They would then meet in a room off the entrance hall, where they were placed in front of desks at which each ‘customer services’ officer sat consulting a computer screen, while having immediate access to a panic button concealed under the desk so that help could be summoned if a tenant got nasty. Tenants never went through the door which led into the main office area: they themselves were not the main business of the building. As with residential Homes, this building and the ways in which it was used said a lot. It quickly and clearly established a hierarchy of power, privilege and status in which everyone was effortlessly guided to her or his allotted place. Jeeva was accustomed to looking at every Home from the point of view of the resident or visiting relative, and he was amazed that the architects and planners had not been more sensitive in their design of this new headquarters building.