Pat Dollard

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USA Today:

The rough economy is inflicting hardship on people even in death.

Coroners and funeral directors in several cities say the number of people seeking government-paid funerals, cremations and burials is spiking. Most counties and states will use public money to cremate or bury people who are too poor to pay for private services.

“People just aren’t in a position to pay $7,000 for a private funeral and burial,” says Lt. David Smith of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, where the number of people seeking county burial has nearly doubled since last year.

The percentage of people in poverty in the USA is climbing, says Gregory Acs, a senior fellow at The Urban Institute. When the recession started at the end of 2007, about 12.5% of the U.S. population was considered impoverished, up from 11.7% in 2001, he says.

Among the counties noting a surge in requests for indigent burials:

• The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office handled 205 indigent deaths in the last six months of 2007. This year, from Jan. 1 to June 30, the office handled 404 indigent deaths — a 97% increase. “It has put a major financial strain on this department,” Smith says. “I need to come up with $12,000 a month in a budget that’s locked up tight as a drum.”

Then in February, the county crematory notified the coroner it was overflowing with natural death cases and couldn’t handle cases from the coroner, who handles accidental deaths, homicides and unidentified people, Smith says. “My body count in my crypt swelled to near capacity,” Smith says, as he sought a crematory to handle the excess corpses.

• Las Vegas has seen a 22% increase in indigent cremations and burials since last year, says Dan Kulin, a spokesman for Clark County, Nev. In the budget year that ended June 30, 2008, the county handled 741 indigent deaths. In the same period ending June this year, the county handled 904 deaths, he says.

“It’s a sign of the times,” Kulin says.

• Kenton County, Ky., is expecting a record year of indigent burials. The 29 indigent burials as of Aug. 13 are more than double last year’s total of 12, says Don Catchen, whose funeral home has the county contract for indigent burials.

Catchen offers a minimal private funeral and cremation for $1,400.

“With the economy being what it is, some of the lesser-income families … are barely surviving and they don’t have any money to pay for even a minimum funeral service,” he says.

“I’ve had the (county) contract 14 years,” he says, “and it’s never been like this before.”