The dead pile up as poverty deepens in Detroit

An unprecedented number of unclaimed corpses — 52 — have accumulated in the Wayne County morgue because more people lack funds to bury family members, Charlie LeDuff of the Detroit News reports.

Generally, the economic well-being of a municipality is measured by unemployment rates and quarterly earnings reports. But [Wayne County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Carl J. Schmidt's] cooler may say as much about metropolitan Detroit’s financial health as any statistics released by the Federal Reserve.

“It really is a sign of how bad things have gotten,” says Schmidt, 52, a 16-year veteran of the Detroit death scene. “Some people really have to make a choice of putting food on the table or burying their loved ones. It is very sad really. In all of my years here, I have never seen it this bad.”

LeDuff reports that the state Department of Human Services has reduced coverage for burial expenses from $900 to $700.

He also reports that more people seem to be dying of “natural causes” as a result of the hard economic times.

“There are some people living on the margins who simply can’t afford their medication anymore,” [Schmidt] says. “Diabetes and what have you. And sadly, these types of deaths are preventable.”