b"When you moved up from assistant manager to manager, how did that change your responsibilities? Whatwas the difference?Every Project doesn't have an assistant manager, the bigger projects do. An Assistant manager would be like the office manager.They make sure that all supplies are ordered, monitor time and attendance, monitor this, monitor that,and make sure HA's had what they needed to do what they do. They would make the reports out, you got to do monthlyreports downtown. They had to go to HUD. Reporting was a big aspect of what the assistant managers did.The managerthen was kind of the overall mayor.Who did the apartment inspections?The housing assistants did the apartment inspections. Depending on the size of the Project or who the manager was,they were overall responsible for making sure that the rent delinquency across the board was low. We kept it pretty low,very low, and it was a big part of our job. It was something that they held your feet to the fire and so we got really goodat it.Was it mostly through negotiation with the tenants and helping them out or did you have to evict a number ofpeople out?You had to evict people, but once the word got out that you were tightened the ship up, you got it pretty good. (I tella story, I worked with a woman named Ramilda Ferguson. Before that, my friend go back to my friend Kramer.) Whenmy friend Kramer and I were both managers in the Bronx, we had this thing where we both told our staffs to beat theother on the rent delinquencies. The staffs got into it. Staff would call each other back and forth and say: What are you attoday? The secretaries would call toward the end of the month, and they'd say: We're at three percent delinquency. In other words, three percent of the tenants have not paid.And I'd say: I'm at two. The staff would go out of their way toget their rate down. They'd make that extra effort to get that rent in. Sometimes it was setting up an appointment at theWelfare Office and sometimes it was taking the tenant down. They would call the tenant up in the morning and remind-ing them that you've got an appointment this afternoon, you better be there, that kind of thing. We brought our delin-quencies way down. Kramers and my delinquencies were the lowest in the Bronx. We got down to less than one percentone time, less than one percent, which was unheard of. Today it's 20 22 percent is considered good today. We had it lessthan a percent.Why do you think there is the difference today?They did away with the bookkeeping offices and now tenants mail rent to some central location. There's little coordination. That's what we did and I took that same model when I went to Manhattan. A woman namedRamilda Ferguson and I did the same thing.Our Projects were right across the street from each other, Jefferson andJohnson, and she had worked for me. I told my staff their job was to beat her and she told her staff, their job was to beatme. We got the lowest delinquencies in Manhattan. We were down there. We made it fun in a sense, a little competition.I didn't beat anybody; I didn't have to curse anybody. [Laughs]-When we beat them, I give them a little party or some-thing, no big deal, but it was fun just beating them.95 "