Oregon Public Broadcasting

This year, Oregon's Indigent Burial Fund has received an unusually high number of requests on behalf of families who couldn't afford to claim the remains of their loved ones.

Their numbers are up forty percent from the year 2000.   As April Baer reports, it appears the recession's grip now extends beyond the end of life.

Deputy Medical Examiner Cathy Phelps is on the team that seeks out next-of-kin. She slides open a huge steel door for a look inside the dark, icy room where her deceased charges lie.

Many people brought to this tri-county morgue stay for a few days. But as the economy has worsened, Phelps says more of the dead must wait weeks for someone to claim them. She says the deputy medical examiners take this job seriously.

Cathy Phelps.  "And you know, each deputy takes it personally to try to find that family and get people moved on to where they need to go."

Just to be clear: the State Medical Examiner's office isn't out of room for people whose families are too cash-strapped to pay for a funeral.

Cathy Phelps.   "We're not full up at this point."

Since the mid 90s, Oregon has cared for the unclaimed dead with an refined public-private system.

The state medical examiner's office spends days, and weeks if necessary, seeking out next of kin, and encouraging private funeral arrangements.

If no one is willing - or able - to pay the basic $450 for a simple cremation, some funeral homes will accept remains, and make their own attempts to find kin to take responsibility.

And that, says Oregon Medical Examiner Karen Gunson, is getting much harder to do.

Karen Gunson "I think it's sort of a comment on this recession. People are trying, when we have them back here for three or four weeks - they're trying. But it's a choice between, 'Am I going to pay the rent, buy some food, some medicine, or am I going to pay $450 and take care of my brother?' "

For the first four months of this year, the latest figures available, the state recorded eighty one unclaimed bodies. That compares to just sixty one for the same period of time last year.

For a lucky few,  the faith community steps in to help. Father Sergei Sveshnikov is pastor at the  Holy New Martyrs, a Russian Orthodox Church in the Portland area.

Sergei Sveshnikov:   "I would say the last three funerals we had in the church, all three we had to financially support those families to quite a large degree, because otherwise they simply wouldn't have made it." 

That support can take several forms, from taking up collections to help pay for embalming and transportation.

The main thing the church can do is provide a free burial plot - Father Sveshnikov says cremation is discouraged in Russian Orthodox tradition.

Some years ago, Oregon stopped  burying people whose families couldn't or wouldn't pay, opting for less expensive cremations.

Today, funeral homes spend a maximum of seven months looking for relatives, and trying to reach agreement with next of kin.

If they're unsuccessful, the funeral homes will cremate the bodies, covering the costs themselves. They then seek reimbursement through a state-run program the Indigent Burial Fund.

Erin Phelps is the owner of Omega Funeral and Cremation Service in Portland. He, too, reports farmore filed marked "unclaimed".

Erin Phelps  "We might be looking at a twenty-five percent increase over a few years ago."

Four dollars from every burial or cremation goes toward the Indigent Burial Fund, to which funeral directors like Phelps can apply for a maximum of $450 compensation for each case.

Phelps notes there's nowhere near enough money in the fund to cover all the funeral homes' costs.

Erin Phelps  "The four dollars times x-number of death certificates in a given month. This is what's in the fund. We still may not receive the $450."

And then it's up to the funeral directors to decide what will become of those who are still unclaimed. Some mortuaries keep the cremated remains in storage for years - wary of liability in case lost relatives surface.

Phelps'  staff drives the ashes to Tillamook County, rents a boat, and scatters the ashes in the waters off the Oregon Coast.