Peter Stefan, the funeral director of Graham, Putnam & Mahoney in Worcester, looks inside an empty simple coffin, the kind he uses to bury people who have little to no money for a funeral.

By Melissa Hanson | mhanson@masslive.com

Part 2 in a MassLive series on what happens to Massachusetts' poor and unwanted when they die and the few people who take on the task of burying them. You can read Part 1 here.

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Thomas Colligan was terminally ill at the Heritage Hall Nursing Home in Agawam and the staff there realized they were in a dire situation.

They had to find someone who would take his body after he died.

Executive Director Ira Schoenberger reached out to local funeral home directors. One denial followed another. No one wanted to take Colligan’s body.

When Colligan got to Heritage Hall, he did not have the mental ability to make decisions about his final resting place. He died with no family or money.

It was the first time the center was faced with a dying person and no one to turn to.

Phone calls led to Peter Stefan, the funeral director at Graham, Putnam and Mahoney in Worcester. There was no one else willing to remove Colligan’s remains after he passed.

“He was very gracious and very helpful for the center,” Schoenberger said in an interview, adding that funeral homes local to Agawam did not offer the knowledge or support that Stefan did. “I had no idea what to do and Peter was the person that came forward and made a difference.”

State funding is available in these cases. But the problem is larger than just a price tag. With only $1,100 offered by the state Department of Transitional Assistance, very few funeral directors across Massachusetts are willing to bury the bodies of the extremely poor or the anonymous. Arranging a funeral on such a small budget can leave directors in the red. It could leave nursing home directors or police officers babysitting a body with nowhere to take the person, turning into a potential public health issue.

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Shelves in the basement of Graham, Putnam & Mahoney are filled with boxes holding the cremated remains of unclaimed people.

The state Department of Transitional Assistance will pay no more than $1,100 to a funeral establishment if the total expense of the funeral and final disposition does not exceed $3,500 for people who receive assistance from the agency or the anonymous.

And if the person’s next-of-kin has some savings, that money is deducted from the $1,100.

“So, if you’re a widow, and you have $1,000 in your checking account to pay your rent or whatever, they deduct that,” Stefan said in a recent interview. “What’s the point?”

In Stefan’s opinion, the law is “unfair” to poor people.

“It’s a washout. It’s hopeless, it’s useless, really,” he said.

Stefan is one of the few funeral home directors in Massachusetts who will willingly take these cases. But arranging a burial or cremation for the $1,100 he can get from the state proves to be an overwhelming challenge, he said.

In the basement of Stefan’s funeral home, there are dozens of boxes holding cremated remains of unclaimed people. They date back nearly 100 years.

Stefan estimated that he does 100 funerals per year for people who accept services from the Department of Transitional Assistance. He tries to cremate those decedents when possible because it can fit more easily into the $1,100 provided by the state.

“You’re not making any money, but it’s better than trying to bury someone,” he said.

A typical cremation costs in the ballpark of $2,500, Stefan said.

One thing is certain: Everyone is going to die. Most people die with a plan for care in place. Many have family members with enough money to pay for a funeral service and burial or cremation.

But then there are those who have no money. For that population, dying becomes a financial burden for poor family members, or for the funeral home directors who must arrange services for just $1,100, the majority of that going to a burial plot.

In Worcester County, plots go for around $700, Stefan said.

So, what does that mean for someone who dies while on welfare? What does a nursing home director do when someone has died with no family and no savings? What happens when funeral directors take a body that no one has claimed?

“I think Peter Stefan’s problem is ‘what am I supposed to do with the person?’” Sen. Harriette Chandler, a Worcester Democrat, said. “This body will stay in my funeral home on and on and on.”

Putting that kind of burden on a funeral director is unfair, said Chandler, who is currently the acting Senate president.

“It’s a human life. To me it’s an ethical and dignity issue,” Schoenberger said. “We have to somehow be supportive and recognize that there are people out there who just fall through the cracks.”

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Hope Cemetery, where Peter Stefan buries many of the people who rely on Department of Transitional Assistance funding.

Most people arrange and pay for their own funerals. But for the thousands who receive state assistance, and for the anonymous, this funding is what allows for a small ceremony to put the person to rest.

This funding is what keeps these people from just being dead bodies.

Someone who can apply for the funds are active or pending clients of Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled, and Children or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; a person who is known as a former Department of Transitional Assistance client whose case has since closed; an Supplemental Security Income recipient at the time of death (including a State Supplement Program client); or a person not known to the Department of Transitional Assistance.

The next of kin -- or in the case of an anonymous person, the funeral director – must apply for the state funding. Someone requesting the funds must submit an itemized bill, a death certificate for the decedent and a signed statement of the total cost of the funeral and final disposition.

The Central Burial Unit recommends invoices for approval or denial.

But some funeral directors question whether a “decent” funeral can be accomplished under that $3,500 cap. Maybe, with a cremation. But certainly not with a burial, they say.

“We’re very concerned about the fact that there is this incredible gap between the cost of burying somebody … and the cost of cremating,” Chandler said.

From Jan. 1, 2017, to about Dec. 18, 2017, the department gave funding for 4,553 funerals or final dispositions, according to data MassLive received through filing a public records request. The total amount paid for those dispositions was $4,929.04.

When asked why the cap or allotment for funding has not increased since 1983, Department of Transitional Assistance spokesman Thomas Mills said, “As the agency of last resort for indigent people and people with limited resources, DTA administers the programs for which we are responsible within the budget we are allotted.”

Asked if there was a specific reason behind the figures -- $1,100 reimbursement and $3,500 cap – the agency just pointed to Chapter117A/Section9, which reads:

The department shall provide for the decent final disposition of all deceased persons who are at the time of death recipients of aid or assistance under this chapter, all deceased persons who, although without means of support at the time of death, did not apply for such aid or assistance and all unknown persons found dead. The commonwealth may recover this expense from any legally liable family members in the manner provided in this chapter, and if such family members do not pay this expense, the commonwealth shall pay an amount not exceeding $1,100 to the funeral establishment if the total expense of the funeral and final disposition does not exceed $3,500. The commonwealth shall have the right of reimbursement from whatever resources may exist in the estate of the deceased person.

The state has elaborated little on the funding.

“DTA is able to provide this reimbursement as a last resort for indigent people and those who have no to very little financial means,” Mills said. “DTA is interested in engaging funeral directors in a discussion of this policy. As noted, DTA is able to provide this reimbursement as a last resort for indigent people and those with no to very little financial means to help provide respite in a trying time.”

The department “has been working” to schedule a meeting with a funeral directors’ group on the issue, Mills said.

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Peter sitting inside Graham, Putnam & Mahoney on Main Street in Worcester.

In Attleboro earlier this year, a hospice social worker reached out to Stefan about a man who had no funds for a burial or cremation.

“Mr. Alexander’s prognosis is very poor,” she wrote to Stefan. She needed him to help out with the body.

Of course, Stefan came to the rescue.

These cases pop up across the state, with no specific area more affected than another.

Stephen Ledoux, a homeless 53-year-old opioid addict from Brockton had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, among other issues.

When police found Ledoux dead at a friend’s apartment on Green Street in Brockton, officers spent more than nine hours waiting with his corpse.

It was Stefan who eventually answered the call.

“This is an issue with Peter because Peter is the person in Worcester who is kind of the funeral director of last resort,” Chandler said.

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A simple, light blue casket is what Stefan uses to bury people in Department of Transitional Assistance cases.

Stefan is widely known as a man who will take any body, believing that all people deserve a decent burial.

Chandler called him “one of the most remarkable men in the state.”

“He believes that people deserve to be buried or cremated and not lie in cold storage,” Chandler said. “He just picks up bodies that others won’t touch.”

Stefan received national media attention in 2013 for taking the body of Boston Marathon Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Both media and protesters camped out outside the funeral home watching Stefan’s every move.

In 2016, he quietly took the body of Jorge Zambrano, the man who was killed in a shootout with police after fatally shooting Auburn Police Officer Ronald Tarentino during a traffic stop.

Neither the Tsarnaev nor Zambrano cases involved Department of Transitional Assistance funding.

Despite his gripes with the system, Stefan said he will not leave a deceased person at a nursing home or in public.

“The thing is, when a person dies in a city or town, whose responsibility is that body?” he asked.

Among the state’s 1,500 funeral homes, there are just a few who are willing to take on cases of the poor and the abandoned.

In addition to Stefan, there’s Bob Lawler, the longtime co-director of Robert J. Lawler & Crosby Funeral and Cremation Services in West Roxbury.

There are other funeral directors in the state who wish the DTA laws would get an update, according to Stefan. But, he feels that those directors are too afraid to speak up.

Several calls to funeral directors regarding the topic went unanswered.

Typically, nursing home directors work with a person’s family or health care proxy to arrange services ahead of time. In most cases, there is a plan in place.

But in cases like Colligan’s, if a nursing home cannot find a funeral director willing to take a body, that nursing home is likely going to be stuck covering the cost.

“There’s no question, that’s why it’s important,” Schoenberger said. “Putting the money aside, everybody has a right for a dignified burial.”

Sometimes, family members will come in with bags of nickels and dimes, Stefan said, hoping to contribute at least a small amount to a loved ones’ funeral.

“The family upstairs that came in, they collected $165 in one dollar bills in tin cans, that’s how bad it is,” Stefan said of one recent case.

Dozens of invoices Stefan turned over to MassLive show the Department of Transitional Assistance deducting sometimes large, sometimes obscurely small, amounts of money from his $1,100 reimbursement, because staff was able to track down some money belonging to the deceased.

In some of those cases, the department asks Stefan to go after the money, he said.

“They want me to be the collection agent, too,” Stefan said.

In one case, the agency found $4.52 belonging to a person Stefan buried in September. They deducted that from the $1,000, leaving his compensation for taking the case at $1,095.48.

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Peter is one of the few funeral directors in the state who will take these cases.

Among the New England states, the $1,100 of Department of Transitional Assistance funding offered is about average. Other states offer as little as $750 or as much as $1,400, or just a “reasonable calculation” of costs.

In New Hampshire, people receiving state financial assistance who die can be eligible for up to $750 toward funeral, burial or cremation expenses, according to state documents. Like in Massachusetts, personal property of the deceased and financial contributions for the funeral, burial or cremation from friends or family can be deducted from the $750 amount.

Municipalities in Maine are responsible for paying direct burial or cremation expenses for those who die with no money or assets or do not have a relative who can pay for services. Relatives who are considered liable to cover the cost are parents, grandparents, a spouse or registered domestic partner, children and grandchildren, according to state documents.

“When no legally liable relative possesses a financial capacity to pay either in lump sum or on an installment basis for the direct costs of a burial or cremation, the contribution of a municipality under this subsection is limited to a reasonable calculation of the funeral director's direct costs, less any and all contributions from any other source,” state law reads.

People in Connecticut are allowed by state law to set aside up to $8,000 from their own savings in an Irrevocable Trust for a pre-paid funeral/burial arrangement.

But, for people who do not have a trust, a funeral home will look to the municipality the deceased last lived in or from DSS, according to state documents. The state will pay up to $1,400 for funeral expenses, which can be reduced by the amount in any revocable or irrevocable funeral fund, any prepaid funeral contract and the face value of any life insurance policy the decedent owned.

In Vermont, the state Department of Children and Families is responsible for burial expenses if a person dies without sufficient assets. The law does not outline a specific amount that the state is bound to pay, just certain circumstances.

The deceased must have been either a recipient of public assistance under certain specified state or federal programs or an honorably discharged veteran of any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, the law reads. Like Massachusetts, what the state will pay is reduced by the deceased’s estate or what the deceased’s spouse can pay.

Also, Vermont funeral homes are responsible for determining from the person making burial arrangements whether the deceased was a veteran or a recipient of state or federal aid. Then the state will pay the funeral director for the service.

Rhode Island limits state assistance for GPA recipients and indigent individuals to $900, according to state documents. That figure can be further reduced based on the income or resources of the deceased and his or her legally liable relatives.

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Boxes of unclaimed ashes stored in the Graham, Putnam & Mahoney basement span back decades.

Chandler said there could be a bill forthcoming that would address some of these issues. If a body is not claimed in 30 days, the bill would propose that the body become a local issue -- not a state issue -- and would ask the local board of health to waive its right and give approval for the body to be cremated.

“I think our immediate concern is what do we do with these unclaimed bodies,” Chandler said. “That’s a very serious problem.”

The bill would be a welcome change to Stefan, who said he would be cautious to ensure that a person’s religious beliefs allowed cremation.

Chandler said that she would support that bill, but that she may not sponsor it considering her new role in the Senate.

Two years ago, Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed a simpler bill that just asked the Department of Public Health to look into the issue, Chandler said.

Stefan envisions a “state recovery unit” that would go after people for information or money when applying for a welfare burial. He says that the state too often will ask funeral directors to chase after families for paperwork or money, even after a person is buried or cremated.

Stefan also would like to see a bill that allows the bodies of anonymous people to be cremated after 30 days. He said under a law like that, he would exercise due diligence to ensure that cremation is allowed within that person’s religious beliefs.

Raising the cap -- so long as a funeral’s final cost does not exceed $3,500, a person can receive the $1,100 in Department of Transitional Assistance funding -- could make a difference, Stefan said.

“Even $5,500 would give people a chance to raise a few bucks,” he said, adding that more and more people today start a GoFundMe account when someone dies, in addition to more traditional fundraising efforts among friends and church communities.

Schoenberger said he would like to see the state create an indigent fund for nursing homes to access when someone dies in custody with no money or family.

Without a resource like that, Schoenberger only has one plan for what to do the next time he needs someone to claim a deceased person from Heritage Hall.

“I’ll be calling Peter,” he said.

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