FEMA offers funeral aid for COVID-19 deaths, but getting funds is not so easy for families

For more than two hours, Kpana Kpoto waited anxiously on the phone to speak with a Federal Emergency Management Agency worker about her mother’s death. The automated recording on the hotline let her know she was the 6,558th person in line at that moment.

When a federal employee finally answered the call, Kpoto was greeted with another time-consuming process that had her spelling and respelling names and repeating information over the wailing of a baby in the FEMA employee’s home.

When FEMA first announced this spring that it would help Americans who unexpectedly had to pay for their loved ones’ COVID-19-related funeral costs, Kpoto was glad for the help. Kpoto’s mother is one of the more than 609,000 Americans who have died of COVID-19. Like many Americans, Kpoto couldn’t attend the funeral because of social distancing protocols. Instead, she watched on a Zoom call as strangers buried the woman who gave her life. She paid the bill out of pocket.

Nearly a year later, she finds herself anxiously checking her bank account to see whether the federal government has sent her a check to cover the costs.

Under the Biden administration, Americans who lost loved ones to COVID-19 can apply for up to $9,000 in funeral assistance. More than $710 million has so far been distributed to 107,000 people. In June, FEMA relaxed the requirements to ensure more people can apply for help.

Many Americans who struggled to bury family members who died of COVID-19 have welcomed the assistance. But a growing number of critics have also raised concerns about the application process, while also demanding more support for families who were unexpectedly devastated by the nation's deadliest pandemic in more than 100 years.

Some applicants said they struggled to prove to the federal government that their relative had died of COVID-19 if another cause of death, such as underlying conditions like heart disease or diabetes, was listed on the death certificate by medical officials, especially during the early days of the pandemic when testing was limited. They also said they needed more support, including access to mental health care services, to be able to better grapple with the loss of their loved ones amid the isolation and widespread economic devastation of the pandemic.

“Early on, it was extremely confusing. All we had was a phone number to call,” said Ian Horowitz, of Philadelphia, who lost his father and uncle to the virus in May 2020. Horowitz was eventually able to obtain the FEMA funeral assistance money and is now helping others apply.

FEMA is no longer requiring death certificates to cite COVID-19 as the cause of death to qualify for funeral assistance. This policy change was made after FEMA consulted with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials and other health experts.

“The new policy provides applicants, as well as medical authorities, coroners, and jurisdictions, the flexibility to attribute a death to COVID-19 without amending the death certificate,” FEMA said in a June 29 statement.

Applicants are still required to upload documents that prove their loved one died of COVID-19, as well receipts from the funeral. After a review process, the applicant is notified if they are approved.

The funeral aid relieves a burden for many families, with average funeral costs totaling between $7,000 and $12,000.

The previous policy posed many challenges for families if the cause of death was not listed as COVID-19 on death certificates, hindering thousands of applicants from receiving funds, according to Kelder George, CEO and executive director of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association.

New Jersey is one of the states with the most COVID-19 fatalities, with 26,000 deaths. But only 10,351 people have applied for FEMA funeral assistance. Of those, only 4,381 applicants have received the funds so far.

George says a lack of knowledge about the program and barriers such as not having access to the internet or a computer has prevented many applications from being processed successfully.

George said some funeral homes are encouraging families they served over the past year to apply for FEMA assistance.

“Some funeral homes are calling families and posting on their social media pages,” he said.

Kpoto said she submitted her paperwork three times on the FEMA website before her documents were approved. She has yet to receive the money.

"I'm still waiting," Kpoto said, "it's a process."

Erika Mckibben, a domestic violence outreach advocate from Georgia who lost her father to the virus in April 2020, helped her mother apply for the funds when the FEMA application process first opened.

“My mother is not tech-savvy,” McKibben said. “Thank God she had us to guide her.”

She said her father, George McKibben, was one of the first African American teachers in Clayton County, Georgia, at a whites-only school, and his death devastated many of those he knew.

After her mother struggled to figure out how to apply for the FEMA aid, McKibben said she began reaching out to U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., to implore him to help make it easier for families to find out about and obtain the funeral assistance.

“It needs to be more uniform across the board,” she added. “We’re already dealing with a tragic loss, just make it a little bit easier.”

McKibben is a part of the Facebook group COVID Survivors for Change, which is dedicated to helping survivors of COVID-19 receive emotional and logistical support. Christopher Kocher, founder of this group, said the group hosted a webinar for its members to walk them through how to navigate the FEMA site and upload documents.

Shannon Cummins was one of the people to take the webinar. Cummings, from Harbor Springs, Michigan, lost her husband to the virus. She said COVID Survivors for Change brought her community when no one else could understand her loss.

“We were denied the opportunity to properly protect ourselves from the virus, and these people in this group understand that,” she said.

Cummings was eventually able to receive the FEMA COVID-19 funeral funds to retroactively cover her husband's burial.

Others who lost loved ones to COVID-19 said they wish the federal government would provide more assistance to help with their grieving.

McKibben said she wants the government to provide free mental health care to those who are still coping with the effects of the pandemic, including the death of loved ones.

“It’s OK to have financial help, but we need mental health support,” McKibben said.

Streamlining the funeral assistance application process would also help alleviate the stress of those who lost a loved one to COVID-19.

“We shouldn’t have to beg,” McKibben said. The FEMA money “should just be given to us.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID-19 FEMA funeral assistance offers families aid after tragic year