too broke to bury their dead
 

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- At 1300 E. Warren St., you can smell the plight of Detroit.

Inside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. So they stack up inside the freezer.

Albert Samuels, chief investigator for the morgue, said he has never seen anything like it during his 13 years on the job. "Some people don't come forward even though they know the people are here," said the former Detroit cop. "They don't have the money."

Lifelong Detroit residents Darrell and Cheryl Vickers understand this firsthand. On a chilly September morning they had to visit the freezer to identify the body of Darrell's aunt, Nancy Graham -- and say their goodbyes.

The couple, already financially strained, don't have the $695 needed to cremate her. Other family members, mostly in Florida, don't have the means to contribute, either. In fact, when Darrell's grandmother passed recently, his father paid for the cremation on a credit card -- at 21% interest.

So the Vickers had to leave their aunt behind. Body number 67.

"It's devastating to a family not to be able to take care of their own," said Darrell. "But there's really no way to come up with that kind of cash in today's society. There's just no way."


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This is nothing special really. Folks all over the place don't have the cash to pay for their relatives' cremations. Detroit's not special in that regard.

The city pretty much collapsed under its own weight, putting all its eggs in one basket, lead by greedy unions, manufacturers who made crappy cars and corrupt politicians.

This'd be a losing formula anywhere and the city is getting what it deserves. Meanwhile, the South, which is largely anti-union is doing just fine. While UAW plants in Michigan keep closing, new ones are taking their place all over the South.

Michigan can either make the decision to get competitive or it continue to be left behind.

I was going to post something here, talk a little bit about some other stuff going on here right now and then I read Kevin's post and, well.. I just can't even respond to that. Clearly this topic is much too personal to me.

You mind giving that news to the last 6 non-union, Southern native plumbers my Charlotte, NC company just laid off?

If you remove the word "deserves" and replace it with something along the lines of "the city is feeling the impact of these decisions now", what exactly do you disagree with?

It's not like this just happened to Detroit - it wasn't happenstance or bad luck or whatever. The overwhelming majority of this happened by design, which sucks for the people at the bottom rung, because they are paying for the bad decisions of those at the top, but Detroit (both in the sense of the city, and as representative of American auto manufacturers) made some pretty poor decisions in hindsight. Indeed, disastrous decisions - and I'm not sure this is Monday morning quarterbacking, because the rationale given at the time was specious at best, and wishcasting at worst.

I'm starting to think that the Detroit situation is something that just can't be discussed on a board like this.

On one side you have people who don't have a lot of sympathy/empathy for the situation, either because a) they see people and businesses in their own areas that are struggling, or b) they have issues with the way the automotive business was run prior to the collapse.

Then, you have people from the Detroit area who (understandably) are sensitive and a bit defensive about the situation. They have allegiances to the automotive industry, or to the unions, or to some part of the situation.

I'm not saying either side is right or wrong, but I just think it's impossible to have any sort of reasonable conversation about it in this type of forum.

I have no empathy for the Union folks that eat their own businesses alives.

Anyone who participated in the auto Unions helped kill their own industry. They deserve to lose their jobs.

You're old enough to know the difference between statistical fact and anecdotal fact.

We had a bid recently with 27 plumbing companies from 4 different states. You must have 3 bidders to open bids. Three years ago, I spent more time going to bids that didn't get opened than anything else. It's not just my company. It's worse in Detroit, but the South is not "just fine".

organ donors should be buried for free. maybe then, more people would become donors. along the lines of charity and public service, i would rank organ donating up there with any living personal sacrifice.

if someone in my hometown needed money for a funeral the community or a church would take a collection. if they did something notable, heroic, or tragic, they would probably get a "...has set up a fund for the family...donations can be made at Kroger's or any First Fifth Bank."

why do they have to cremate the bodies in Detroit? can't they just get a pauper's funeral? it's dignified and inexpensive. not just a cardboard coffin and a hole in the ground.

From my experience in dead relatives, cremation is much cheaper, the cheapest option of all. Burials require a plot, a casket, and workers to dig the hole and refill it. Cremation can be done for much less and the storage isn't as much of an issue (scattering or given to a relative). Columbariums (a crypt for ashes if you will) cost money because well, space is at a premium and it costs a lot.

However there are many hidden costs with cremation. We had to pay for a container for my dad (we had no viewing) and a cardboard box was something like $85 in addition to the cost of the urn, picking up his body (he died at home with hospice care), the actual fire, the scattering, and so on. We went with the cardboard because he'd be mad if we wasted money, he had that kind of sense of humor, and umm yeah, we were setting it on fire!

In a big city it definitely costs more for a burial as there isn't land. I can't think of any place non-military one can be buried in San Francisco, and those spots are running out. There are whole suburbs full of cemeteries, where there are towns with more dead than living.

I suppose it depends on what you're doing and what part of the South you're in. The fact of the matter is that domestic manufacturing is getting the hell out of hostile places like Michigan and going to places where it can actually be profitable. Plumbers and pipefitters will, I'm sure be indirect beneficiaries of that move if they are fortunate enough to be close to the new plants.

It's not about Detroit being "special in that regard." Honestly your post is disgusting. I'm not from Detroit, but I feel a great amount of sympathy for that kind of situation. It must be heartbreaking not to be able to afford to bury a loved one. The sad thing is that so many people feel the way you do which is what is truly wrong with society today. This post says a great deal about you and none of it is good.

Yeah. I can certainly understand that.

For once can you leave politics and crap out of this? Do you have the ability to look at ANYTHING form just a plain humanistic point of view?

Sonia Sotomayor was right...

When I read this post, my human-ness leaped out. How awful it must be to not be able to bury a loved one...no matter what city, town, county, state, or country you live in.

I wasn't thinking about all this other stuff people are bringing up about the current state of Detroit. Wow. Just Wow.

But then, I'm a Humanist.

I agree. Kevin's comment is disgusting. I hope he and his family NEVER have to go through what we are going through. Whether you are still wealthy or have lost a great deal of money because of this, we're all in this together.

Not everyone in Detroit has an allegiance to unions. My family went from well-off to "oh shit" and not one person in my immediate family has worked for unions. Actually, my dad got screwed over by the laborer's union. And you know what? We've been affected. That's what sucks most about this. It's not just people who worked in the automotive industry. It's lawyers, doctors, laborers, landlords, strippers (yes strippers), EVERYONE in Detroit has been affected and it really fucking sucks. So understand THIS, to hear someone say that we deserve what we're getting, is disgusting and heart breaking. I didn't deserve to get a bachelor's degree and not be able to get a job. My dad who worked his ass off and has always contributed to society from the moment he stepped off the boat (plane) and was never part of a union, didn't deserve this. The family with 2 children two houses down from me didn't deserve to have their house taken away by the bank.

And the easy answer that I'm sure my response will get? Move to another state. And what does that solve? Nothing. Moving costs money anyways. These people have no money. No jobs. People are becoming homeless. People who aren't your usual lazy bum cannot feed and clothe their families. So YOU tell me what they did to deserve this.

It's people like you guys who make people like me feel worthless. Like it's our fault that Detroit is crashing down around us and there's nothing we can do about it. My heart aches for those people who can't afford to bury their loved one. We buried my uncle in January and I watched my parents, aunts and uncles struggle to find money to do it. It is SO expensive but it's something that must be done.

This ^^^


It was the reason why I posted this thread in the first place.

Yes, it's the word "deserve" that I find offensive. However, I have to remind myself of the source. This is the same guy who has posted on this board that the homeless should just be allowed to die because they didn't do more to help themselves. I have a compassion for humanity in general and don't think that anybody "deserves" something that they weren't directly responsible for. A serial killer may "deserve" life imprisonment. Someone who works their whole lives at an honest living after working hard to educate themselves doesn't "deserve" financial devastation. I will not argue that Michigan put all it's eggs in one basket but for a very long time, that basket supported millions of people in many states across many industries in this country. The health care system nationwide is on the verge of a crash not dissimilar to the auto industry and people are fighting a proactive tooth and nail. The banking system crashed and it was saved. Money talks, that's the bottom line.

It would be a wonderful world if we could all grow up with silver spoons in our mouths. Kevin doesn't seem to understand that in a capitalistic society, all class levels and job levels have to be present. We can't all be CEOs. We can't all be so wealthy that money will never be a problem. We can get Master's degrees and pour money into a retirement fund, save funds, be responsible and still end up without a job, on the verge of losing your home because you were born and raised, and chose to stay, in a particular geographic area.

Michigan is not alone in putting all of it's eggs in one basket. Many states utilize the resources that they have available. I don't disagree that the UAW was greedy, but, in their greed, they supported hundreds of thousands of other people in other industries: restaurants, theaters, boats, sporting goods, etc. If our society was able to completely eliminate the need for oil, where would Texas be? Why is there such resistance to moving to alternative fuel sources? Because people in that industry fight it.

For many of the people who live and work in the Detroit metro area, it most certainly is happenstance and bad luck. Many are, in fact, victims of circumstances over which they had no control and no warning. People who would happily relocate but can't because they can't sell their houses and if they walk away from their current home, their credit report will be so destroyed that they can't find a new place to live. Kevin tends to be closed minded to the fact that there are not as many jobs as there are people, let alone jobs that allow you to live a comfortable lifestyle. However, we still need people working those jobs. We are dependent on the waitresses, nurses aids, child care workers, etc. Where would any of us be without them?

I do think you can make a distinction between feeling for individuals who are suffering and believing that certain political policies which resulted in the situation were wrong.

stands up and applauds.

One can't understand struggle if one never had to.

This post FTW.

I'm so sorry to hear about this. And I second your statement that Kevin's response was disgusting. My thoughts go out to everyone who is facing this kind of thing. And it saddens me that there are people out there who really don't seem to care and who make heartless comments.

WHAT??!!! :eek:

A couple of things on this:

1) PM_Mama - I never said it was just unions. What I was saying is that it's a deeply personal situation for people in Detroit, because of the overwhelming presence of the automotive industry there.

2) To reiterate Belle's point, saying that the government and business leaders of Detroit failed does not equal saying that the people of Detroit deserved this. I feel terrible for the people who are out of work, and for the citizens of Detroit (and around the country) who have become victims of bad political and business decisions.

Finally (to both of you and deepimpact2), on a personal note, I'd caution any of you about making assumptions about the people posting. Not all of us grew up with silver spoons, or even with middle-class backgrounds. I grew up in a household where money was a HUGE problem, where tough choices had to be made every day, where I did not have health insurance as a child, and where I had to work two jobs through high school and during college to help ensure that I could pay for a college education, living expenses, etc. (and so that I could help contribute to the household living expenses to supplement what my parents could scrap together). I know what it's like to live in a household where each day is a struggle.

I am very sorry that you and the other residents of Michigan are going through all of this. But, let's not play the assumptions game here.

No assumptions need to be made. The posts speak for themselves. I didn't make any assumptions about your life and whether you had a silver spoon. I was commenting on how disgusting the content of the posts was in reference to the topic.

There's a reason there aren't as many jobs as there are people.

It's the fault of the unions and the government (both federal and the state level). Capitalism works, if you let it. But so few let it and continue to accept intervention such as the inherently racist minimum wage policy. The Unions setwage floors to keep people out, not include them and help them out. The Unions did this to keep out black people in apartheid South Africa.

Let's put aside Kevin's post for a minute.

What's happening in Detroit is awful, and there has to be a lot of hurt being felt by families in the area. To a lesser extent, there's a lot of that going on around the country - people seeing their neighbors and family members losing their homes, losing their jobs, things of that nature. There are a lot of people who have had rough lives over the past couple of years, and who will continue to have rough lives for some time.

Now, the way I read RC's post (and he can correct me if I'm wrong) is the following: we have seen the mistakes of the past; now, how can we make sure this doesn't happen again in the future? What can we do to make sure that companies, unions and government don't injure another area the way they've injured the Detroit area?

Personally, I have concern for the people of Detroit (and Michigan)...surprisingly, there are quite a few Michigan residents at my law school, and you can tell that the events of the past couple of years have broken their hearts. However, I also hope that this level of economic spiral doesn't happen to another community. There will be economic cycles where people will lose their jobs, where business will have a downturn..that's guaranteed to happen at some point in the future. I just hope that people are paying attention to some of the mistakes made by the various entities, and that those mistakes don't happen again.

I don't know what's heartless or cold about that line of thinking. I think it just expresses a hope that everyone learns from their mistakes.

ETA: My first comment in the thread still stands, in that I think this is an impossible topic to discuss in a forum like this. That's not a shot at anyone - it's such a personal issue for people in Michigan that, I think, anyone can understand the emotion behind their views.

Texas is a bad example. They have what is probably the most diversified economy in the country. Honestly, if the oil just dried up (which won't happen), Texas has enough other things going on that, while it'd feel an effect, it wouldn't be as bad as you think. We've even diversified in Oklahoma after learning our lesson in the 1980's.

It used to be that the labor unions worked together with the corporations to make sure that both entities could prosper. At some point, that changed. It became a game of the unions extracting as much as humanly possible from their corporate overlords. The result was predictable and yes, deserved. Further, as to Detroit, the city itself has had a long and storied history of corrupt leadership. Who keeps electing them? Who elected Kwame Kilpatrick?

No control and no warning? Really? That's kind of what I'm talking about. To say that you couldn't see the collapse of the auto industry after years and years of bleeding and losses is just astounding to me. I don't think I'd be stretching much to say that anyone who has paid attention to Detroit knew it was not a question of "if" Detroit collapsed, but rather "when."

I agree 100%, which is why what KSigkid said was reasonable and what Kevin said was not.

Kevin has been very open on these boards about his family's wealth and his future in the family law firm. He has repeatedly said things like "that would never happen to me" and takes the attitude that since he is immune to financial ruin, everybody else should position themselves that way as well and implies that all people can and that those who don't just aren't doing enough.

You missed my point completely. My point was that everybody can't be bosses. There have to be some peons. In a capitalistic society, there must be different classes and looking down on the middle/lower class is closed minded and short sighted.

I agree with you about unions. I am as anti-union as they come. Nobody in my family has ever been in a union.

The residents of Detroit get to vote in the Mayoral election. The millions of people who work in Detroit do not. We have no power over who gets elected in the city of Detroit and are outraged time and time again that these clowns get re-elected. We have no power. We simply pay our income tax to the city because we have to. Incidentally, Ford is not centered in the city proper and neither is Chrysler. GM is the only auto company whose headquarters are in the city of Detroit. Just an FYI because there are a lot of misconceptions there.

And yes, no control and no warning. Yes, the auto industry has had a slow bleed and our economy has changed a lot with that slow bleed. It's been several years now that Health Care is the number one employer, not the auto industry. It's been several years now that movies and tv shows are being filmed here by the dozens because of tax breaks given to that industry to use our state resources. In fact, they're building a new movie studio in a suburb of Detroit and hiring hundreds of people. Google came to Ann Arbor and opened an office. Many jobs have been created in the Life Sciences Corridor of Tech Town, an area being developed to be a mecca of medical/biological research. The collapse of the auto industry after the banking/credit collapse happened MUCH faster than anybody could have predicted. The auto industry had been changing and downsizing, in response to changes in consumer demand and desires, but the credit freeze broke them irreparably. No, we didn't think gas would be $4.50 a gallon last summer, making people suddenly want to ditch the SUVs they loved so dearly before. And, we certainly didn't expect our housing values to go down by 50% just before GM and Chrysler would both file bankruptcy back to back like they did, putting 20% of the work force in the state out of work. It was the "Perfect Storm" of an economy completely collapsing. It's not done yet. It's not over.

We don't know yet where bottom will be, but it certainly isn't the fault of that guy who can't bury his aunt. I hope his co-workers take up a collection for him like the people who work in our cafeteria have done for two of their co-workers. I can't imagine being in such a horrible place that I had to ask people for money to take care of the remains of my loved one.

My post wasn't so much directed at you. It was at Kevin who thinks everyone is below him and scum of the earth.

Is the south is doing just fine? Aren't half the condos in Miami sitting empty? How about Chicago, NY, and Boston which are largely UNION? How are those areas doing? Are there entire developements sitting empty like in Miami and Mexifornia?

Isn't it a statistical fact that the sales of Toyota and Nissan dropped just like the Big 3's sales dropped?

You do get to choose which you will be though. I know too many first generation Americans who came here without a dime to their name from places like Vietnam and Iran who worked 2-3 jobs until they could run their own businesses and are quite well off today. If those people can be bosses, so can anyone else. It just takes hard and smart work. If you refuse to do that kind of stuff, yes, you will get to be a peon, but it's your choice.

I'm not even anti-union. I think some unions do a hell of a job advocating for their members without tanking the industry. A good example of that would be the plumbers and pipe fitters union. They really do a great job and I know the companies (because I've seen their books) which have these folks working for them can still do very, very well.

Blame your parents and their parents for this phenomenon. This is a direct result of racism, the subsequent reverse-racism and white flight. Again, this is an issue entirely of the making of the folks which, as you say, "work in Detroit."

To be fair, just about every major metropolitan area sports its own 'Mecca' of biomedical research. We even have such an animal in OKC. Unfortunately, it just won't do to have an economy which is based and depends entirely on private and public grants to stay afloat.

As I said before, I don't think that's a phenomenon which only occurs in Detroit. There are plenty of places around where folks can't scrape together $600+ for a cremation (although that seems rather steep, I think it's only around $450 here).

Everyone's sales dropped. Not everyone had to file for bankruptcy.

How do you compete with $1/day labor?

Everyone's sales dropped? Both non-union and union sales dropped? Why did the non-union sales drop? Didn't you say it was the unions fault?


PS. Why did a great non union company like Yugo go out of business?

Is that what they're paying in Indiana?

You really don't know anything about plumbers or pipe fitters.

The reason union plumbers, pipe fitters or any trade are able to survive is because it is pretty much impossible to outsource a job that has to be done locally to non union labor in China. If an owner needs plumbing done they can't send their building to China to have a Chinese plumber lay the pipe.

Are you kidding? Nothing I said was political in the slightest - I don't even know how you can construe that as a political post.

Indeed, I did address the "humanistic" part - I really do feel for the people of Detroit, as I noted when I said (paraphrase) that it sucks for the worker bees to pay for the shitty reasoning and greedy short-sightedness of the queen bees running Detroit. And it does suck - PM_Mama's post is a great example of the laws of unintended consequences, and how the disastrous moves of a few can affect the many.

But that doesn't change the fact that Detroit didn't just happen - this isn't the dinosaurs disappearing in a giant fireball with little or no evidence of why. We know why. It's plain as day - and it's not political, it's economic, it's intellectual, it's even humanistic. But pardon me for looking at this pragmatically: Detroit got fucked because the Big Auto manufacturers built a house of cards. Everyone living in Detroit is dealing with the fallout, which sucks, but it doesn't mean Kevin is explicitly wrong, even if you think he's being an asshole. Both can be true, in fact.

So Imus, what are you driving at here? That the unions played no role in the collapse of two of the Big 3? That paying out insane wages and benefits for essentially unskilled labor is a good business strategy? What exactly?

A Honda plant was just opened up in Indiana just this year. How long has it been since Michigan opened a new auto plant? Early 90's maybe? Why do yo think that is?