DETROIT — Governor Rick Snyder and Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr are planning severe reductions to city of Detroit retirees’ pensions. Many of the pensions are already below the poverty line and retirees are extremely nervous about the negotiations taking place this week. Some are imagining what it would be like to live on 75 percent or 50 percent of pensions that average only $19,000 per year to begin with.

When asked about potentially living on $300 per month or half of her pension, Binne Boatner, retired office assistant, stated that she fears losing her home and fears depending on Detroit food banks to survive. 

There are three in her home and they depend on the pension that she earned through years of service. “I worked for this pension and now they want to take it back. Orr and Snyder are forcing me and my husband into welfare and that is not what I worked for all of these years,” said Boatner.

Executive Director of Latino Family Services Lidia Flores-Reyes estimates three quarters of the 20,000 retirees will need assistance and half of the retirees would be struggling to make ends meet in Detroit. 

Human service agencies across southeast Michigan are currently at or over capacity in terms of providing services and have no idea how they will serve thousands more thrown into deep poverty if Snyder and Orr’s cuts become real.

Rev. Sharon Buttry of Michigan United works to prevent families from losing their homes to foreclosure and the blighted communities that result from foreclosures.

“A drop of thousands of dollars per year on incomes that weren’t that big to begin with is bound to increase the number of foreclosures, a serious blow to families andneighborhoods. We anticipate seeing another round of foreclosures tied to pension cuts in the coming months that will further devastate Detroit neighborhoods. Whatever money they save from these cuts will come back to haunt us in the end, dragging down our neighborhoods and sectors of our economy as well,” Buttry said.