A few weeks later, a deposit for nearly $7,000 appeared in her bank account. In early June, Boss called the FEMA hotline and was told all her documents were in order. Julie and Mike Boss received reimbursement from FEMA for the funeral of their father, Hill, center, who died of Covid last year. She mailed the paperwork in early May but then resubmitted it online after not getting any confirmation that her package arrived at the agency. The Boston resident had some trouble getting through to a representative by phone at first but eventually did. What frustrated some applicants the most was the lack of communication from the agency after they applied.įor Julie Boss, the main issue was that FEMA didn’t acknowledge receiving the documents detailing the funeral expenses for her father, Hill, a retired high school teacher who died in a nursing home from Covid-19 in May 2020 three days shy of his 91st birthday. In late June, the agency changed its interim policy to allow applicants to attach a letter to the death certificate from the medical examiner or coroner explaining the link to Covid-19 for those who died between January 20 and May 16, 2020. But that did not capture those who passed away early in the pandemic when Covid-19 was rarely, if ever, noted as the cause of death. Originally, FEMA required the death certificate to reflect that the death was attributed to or likely caused by Covid-19. Then-acting Administrator Robert Fenton later acknowledged the bumpy rollout in a congressional hearing but said the agency “cleaned that up by the second day.”Īnother issue that arose was over death certificate documentation. However, the hotline’s launch was initially plagued by busy signals and technical issues – the agency received more than 1 million calls on the first day. RELATED: Here’s what’s in the Covid relief packageįEMA opted to register applicants by phone rather than online because of the sensitive nature of the program. The reimbursement covers the transfer of remains, burial plot, casket, clergy services, cremation and headstone, among other expenses, for deaths that occurred in the US. Some $2 billion was allocated as part of the $900 billion relief deal Congress approved in December, while the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion package in March bolstered the program by providing the agency with an additional $50 billion to use for coronavirus-related costs. While FEMA has aided families with disaster-related burial costs in the past, the Covid-19 effort is the largest of its type. Applicants in Alaska, the District of Columbia and Montana each had among the lowest shares, with about 44% of their claims approved, along with Puerto Rico at 43%. Minnesota residents have had the highest percentage of their applications approved, at 64%, followed by Oklahoma residents at 63%. The effort got off to a rocky start, but the agency has approved about 55% of the nearly 247,500 applications it’s received and has doled out more than $888 million, as of August 2. Harrington is among the more than 135,000 people who’ve been helped so far by the funeral assistance program, which Congress established as part of its coronavirus relief legislation. “It let me pay off bills, let me get back on my feet,” said Harrington, a community manager for an affordable housing division of a real estate developer. He’s now more understanding of the time it took to process his application. Courtesy George Harringtonįinally, in June, he received the reimbursement of $9,000, the maximum FEMA provides for each loved one who died of Covid-19. FEMA reimbursed George Harrington for the funeral costs of his father, who died of Covid in April 2020.
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