FOX: Chicago’s predatory funeral homes target homicide victims, cash in on taxpayer-funded expenses.
CHICAGO – Predatory funeral homes have been accused of cashing in on Chicago’s relentless crime wave by taking advantage of a taxpayer-funded scheme that pays $7,500 in funeral expenses for homicide victims’ families.
Advocates have accused some funeral directors of inflating prices or charging families for services they never received.
“Every funeral home in the state knows that victims get $7,500 for a funeral and it’s their goal to charge the entire amount because it’s easy money,” Susan Johnson, executive director of Chicago Survivors, told Fox News.
Johnson, whose organization helps people who have lost loved ones to homicide, claims some zero in on people receiving money from the Illinois Crime Victim’s Compensation fund.
The state – along with the federal government – provides eligible victims of violent crime with up to $27,000 in financial assistance for out-of-pocket expenses. The families of murder victims get $7,500 for funeral costs. more
Surprised? It is Chicago after all.
Isn’t there a tv show about Chicago?
The Purge.
Talk about being worth more dead than alive for thugs.
Even the funerals are at taxpayer’s expense.
From cradle to grave…
Liberal utopia!
*Of course, some never make it to the cradle*
Eligible victims. Does that include gang members murdered by other gang members? I’m guessing yeah.
Why is there even an Illinois Crime Victims Compensation Fund?? Sounds like an incentive for more homicides and other felonies.
Unless the funeral parlors are actually doing the killing, I think it’s disingenuous to call them predators. Bully for them for exploiting taxpayer stupidity. It’s not like they are stealing money from the grieving families–they don’t get to keep $7,500 less the tupperware urn to bury their relative.
I’d love to see their business curtailed, but that would actually involve reducing the number of homicides in Chicago–something that apparently Chicago politicians are adamantly opposed to.
Every city has an incinerator operated by the public works department. How about dispensing with all the time and money wasting prep work and just give the carcasses the heave ho?
But what about all the lead poisoning? Shouldn’t those bodies be treated as hazardous waste?
I’m sure gangs are given group rates!
@Organgrinder Correct, That’s how medical waste is safely disposed of.
@WDS
And in this case just waste.
“cash-strapped cities like Chicago” can afford up to $27,000 for victims’ funerals and survivor benefits?
*insert long string of really, really bad words here*
Wher’es the part where Momma’s know how much it’s worth and Pocket the Cash, to let the State finally have to Dispose of the Body.
Sign on a Chicago Funeral Parlor: YOU PLUG ‘EM, WE’LL PLANT ‘EM.
(thnx to old comic strip Tumbleweeds).