Have economic times gotten so bad that some of the dead are going unburied? Several large counties across the country are experiencing unprecedented increases in the number of unclaimed deceased ”” not only the dead people who could not be identified, were indigent or were estranged from their family, but also apparently the growing number whose loved ones simply cannot afford to bury or cremate them. The phenomenon has increased costs for local governments, which have to dispose of the bodies.
“People were picking the bodies up last year,” says Albert Samuels, chief investigator at the medical examiner’s office in Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit. “Across the board, I’m finding the numbers are on the rise of either families who are not coming forward to claim bodies or they’re signing releases saying they can’t afford to bury someone, which taxes the county resources because then the county is responsible for burying these people.”
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has seen a surge in the number of bodies not claimed by families for cremation or burial because of economic hardship, according to the Los Angeles Times. At the county coroner’s office ”” which handles homicides and other suspicious deaths ”” 36% more cremations were done at taxpayers’ expense in the past fiscal year compared with the previous year, 712 vs. 525, the paper reported.
This is not a money problem as much as a responsibility problem. We frequently have car washes around town to raise money to fund funerals for family members.