Posted on 11/21/2009 12:37:15 AM PST by bruinbirdman
The abandoned corpses, in white body bags with number tags tied to each toe, lie one above the other on steel racks inside a giant freezer in Detroit’s central mortuary, like discarded shoes in the back of a wardrobe.
Some have lain here for years, but in recent months the number of unclaimed bodies has reached a record high. For in this city that once symbolised the American Dream many cannot even afford to bury their dead.
“I have not seen this many unclaimed bodies in 13 years on the job,” said Albert Samuels, chief investigator at the mortuary. “It started happening when the economy went south last year. I have never seen this many people struggling to give people their last resting place.”
Unburied bodies piling up in the city mortuary — it reached 70 earlier this year — is the latest and perhaps most appalling indignity to be heaped on the people of Detroit. The motor city that once boasted the highest median income and home ownership rate in the US is today in the midst of a long and agonising death spiral.
After years of gross mismanagement by the city’s leaders and the big three car manufacturers of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, who continued to make vehicles that Americans no longer wanted to buy, Detroit today has an unemployment rate of 28 per cent, higher even than the worst years of the Great Depression.
The murder rate is soaring. The school system is in receivership. The city treasury is $300 million (£182m) short of the funds needed to provide the most basic services such as rubbish collection. In its postwar heyday, when Detroit helped the US to dominate the world’s car market, it had 1.85 million people. Today, just over 900,000 remain. It was once America’s
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
How can poor people of Detroit afford to bury their family members?.Have you priced illegal drugs, booze, big screen TV’s, and satellite TV programing lately?
in white body bags with number tags tied to each toeThey've been put on layaway -- of course it'll take years for other Detroiters to claim 'em.
“Some have lain here for years...”
Wait....what do they mean? I hope they mean ‘there have always been unclaimed bodies’ not that the some of the bodies there now have been there for years.
This is either very bad writing or even worse public policy.
yes they do its call the whole city of detroit...more open land than the west....block after block with 1 or 2 houses on it......
Detroit was such a nice place when I lived there 50 some years ago.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Dems are evil and they only spread it over every one.
Giggle. Thanks for the chuckle, Renegade.
When will people read the Book of Mormon no disrespect but as a convert I have read about this day and more is to come.
I don’t care what faith you are practice it and read the Book of Mormon it will prepare all who drink from it.
You don’t have to be LDS benefit from it!
I think this is beginning to happen everywhere. One of my cousin’s is married to a mortician and they said that the morgue here is starting to fill up because people can’t afford to care for their own and the county only care for so many a month.
yitbos
Hey, where do you think Obama got the idea? ;’)
My biggest fear right now is the “Death Panel” appointed by Barack Hussein Obama’s “Death Czar”.
***
It is this attitude of Obama that makes one wonder if when he did go see his grandmother the one who nurtured and raised him if euthanasia was not applied.
It is a Geo Soros fascination.
After that grandma lips were sealed!
Barack Hussein Obama at a so called town meeting after Sarah Palin's statement about Death Panels, "Some say that I would pull the plug on grandma. I say, 'whats your solution?' ".
yitbos
:’(
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