Seattle Honors the Forgotten and Unwanted Dead

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

Around the nation cities and counties bear much of the responsibility of caring for the homeless in life and in death. The city of Seattle has a new program to honor the indigent with a public funeral. From member station KUOW, Cathy Duchamp reports.

CATHY DUCHAMP reporting:

It's a mass burial for 200 people.

Unidentified Man #1: Earth to earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

DUCHAMP: Only three dozen mourners attend the service at Mt. Olivet Cemetery. The ashes of the dead are stored in small cardboard boxes. They're buried together in a concrete crypt. The simple grave marker reads `Gone but not forgotten, these people of Seattle, 2005.'

Reverend JEFF BARKER: I can't think of a lonelier way to leave this world than to have no one around to say kind, compassionate, Christian words over you.

DUCHAMP: Reverend Jeff Barker and six other religious leaders of different faiths led the prayers for the dead.

Unidentified Man #2: I'd like to read a psalm, the 23rd Psalm, both in Hebrew and in English. (Hebrew spoken)

Unidentified Woman: And we thank you for whatever love these men and women received and for whatever love they showed to others in lives we may never know.

Unidentified Man #2: I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. We say amen.

Unidentified People: (In unison) Amen.

DUCHAMP: There are no weeping mothers, stoic fathers or antsy children at the grave. Instead there are social workers, homeless advocates and others who feel a kinship with people in the crypt.

Mr. GEORGE WATKINS (Indigent): You know, we're kind of in the place of their families. You know, we are their families, really, if you think about it.

DUCHAMP: George Watkins is an alcoholic and was homeless for years. He's sober now and lives in public housing in Seattle.

Mr. WATKINS: ...(Unintelligible) know that if I was to die, that there will be people somewhere that care about me, you know, no just my family, but, you know, strangers even, you know. That's pretty good to know that, you know, to feel that.

DUCHAMP: After the funeral Watkins and the others linger and chat. The tradition of going to a relative's house for comfort and sandwiches doesn't apply here, but the cliche that funerals are for the living does apply. Rabbi Ted Staymann(ph).

Rabbi TED STAYMANN: There's a feeling deep, deep, deep in the heart of human beings that unless the remains of a human being are cared for in a proper way, that something is undone. It's not finished. It's like an open sore. So this is our way, perhaps, to heal our neglect of these people.

DUCHAMP: Nationwide there's no uniform way of dealing with the poor and unclaimed. But Seattle's effort to make these services public is quite novel, a sad fact for Stan Burris(ph). He's 60 years old and lives in a downtown Seattle hotel for the poor.

Mr. STAN BURRIS: If I did come down with cancer or whatever can kill a person, I would have nobody to remember me.

DUCHAMP: King County, Washington, budgets $150,000 a year to cremate and bury between 200 and 300 indigents. Most of the people buried today died two or three years ago. Shelves of the county medical examiner's office hold the cremated remains of hundreds of others who died more recently. They'll be buried later this year. For NPR News, I'm Cathy Duchamp in Seattle.

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