How to pay for funeral for family with no money!

[WotchOotErAPolis]

A friend has just come round and told me that a funeral he is helping to organise can't be paid for as the family concerned are too poor to pay for it. Apparently, the body is being held in the hospital mortuary until such time as they have proved to the DSS [or whoever] that they have no money and can't pay, in order for the govt [or whoever!] to step in and help pay for it. The poor guy passed away a week before Xmas and the funeral has now been put back until at least 30th Jan as that's how long it's estimated it will take to pore over the bereaved family's finances and assess whether they are entitled to assistance.

The funeral director won't take the body until someone can prove that they can pay for storage!! My friend and other friends of the family have now resorted to crowdfunding to raise the cash!

Does anyone know how they can resolve this quicker and get the poor soul the funeral he deserves - soon?

It wouldn't happen any quicker, a lot of people die over Christmas. Someone I know died on the 13 th December and the funeral hasn't happened as the crem is very busy.

but probably just his awful luck to pass away when he did.

Has he tried contacting the council? This link is useful (sorry, it's a Daily Mail link)

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-2545230/What-not-money-pay-loved-ones-funeral.html

"What if I absolutely cannot pay at all?
The local authority or hospital trust will provide a Public Health Funeral. Once called a pauper’s funeral, these do not have the same social stigma as perhaps they once had.
A survey from the University of Bath concluded: ‘A feeling of shame associated with not being able to afford a funeral is not universal. Interviews with local authority employees tasked with organising Public Health Funerals suggest there may be an emerging trend of individuals or families unwilling to organise and pay for a funeral of a deceased family member, usually as a result of estrangement.
'This reluctance to pay for a funeral is not necessarily accompanied by feelings of social stigma.’
These services are small, but dignified.
Julie Dunk, technical series and events manager at the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, says an outsider would never be able to tell whether a funeral was arranged and paid for by the local authority or by a family member or friend of the deceased - the format will be the same.
'Local authorities have a legal duty to make arrangements where no others are - or are likely to be - made,' she said. They were brought in as a last resort for where there is no family or anyone else to make arrangements. But while they were not designed for people who can't afford to pay for a funeral, they are increasingly used for this reason. Sometimes people genuinely have no other option.
'Generally local authorities will have agreements with a local funeral director, who would carry out the funeral in the same way as for a funeral paid for by relatives or friends.
'Some of these funerals have been among the best-attended I have been to - sometimes over 100 people. There was one funeral in Bournemouth of a homeless man who used to sell the Big Issue outside of Waitrose. Although he had no friends or family to pay for his funeral, there were lots of people who wanted to pay their respects - and around 100 showed up.' "

We are having to do this for my mum. We have no money to pay for her funeral, and, because we aren't on benefits we can't get a payment from the dwp towards it. I'm afraid my attitude towards it all is a bit fatalistic, she needs a funeral,they will have to provide one, or she stays in the mortuary. I spent a week crying about it before I got to this point, though..I had thought about crowdfunding too, but I just couldn't do it.