Governments paying burial, cremation costs

DAYTON, Ohio — Renata Richardson had already picked a name for her first child: Jazmyn Rose. She was stockpiling gifts such as baby socks, hats and a bassinet.

But the fetus died a month before she was to be born. Richardson was crushed not only by the miscarriage but because she knew she couldn't afford the cremation, which would have cost $600 to $1,200. She had lost her job as an advertising manager months before and couldn't find another in the slumping economy.

"That's the last thing I wanted to do for her, and I knew that I couldn't do it," she said.

Richardson, 25, of Davie, Fla., joined a growing number of people seeking help with burial and cremation costs as the recession triggers layoffs and foreclosures and rocks the family budget. Local governments — already cutting their budgets — are stepping in with taxpayer dollars.

The numbers are up at coroner's offices from Los Angeles to Dayton, Ohio, to Chapel Hill, N.C. Some states and cities have increased their budgets to meet the demand.

"They basically tell me they can't afford it," said Lt. David Smith, who tracks down families of the dead in Los Angeles County. "Everybody we do get ahold of is washing their hands of it."

The median cost of a funeral for a family, including casket and vault, is about $7,300. The cost to governments, which don't arrange funerals, can range from $150 for basic cremation to $1,400 for burial.

Most states don't require relatives to pay for the burial or cremation of the poor. Governments step in if the dead had no assets and the families cannot pay or cannot be found.

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Broward County in Florida, which is partially funded through property taxes, paid for the cremation of Richardson's baby.

The city of Dayton did the same for Debra Hunt, whose 32-year-old daughter, a cancer patient, died in February. Cremation would have cost $1,000, and Hunt had $400 in the bank after quitting her job with the Dayton school system to be with her daughter.

The need for financial help reached the point that Renee Donnell, owner of Alamance Funeral Service in Burlington, N.C., started a fundraising campaign to create a burial fund. To raise money, she has helped organize plays, dinners and a silent auction. Several families have applied for money since the fund was created in October.