Burial fund launched for grieving families

Seeking to assist impoverished families of Boston's homicide victims, a group of funeral directors, black ministers, police, and community leaders launched a charitable fund yesterday to help defray burial costs.

The Ten Point Memorial Fund will use donations from funeral directors and individuals to help relieve up to $2,000 of the cost of grave purchase and burial expenses.

The fund, believed to be the first private fund of its kind, was launched after a record number of homicides in Boston in recent years, many in Dorchester and Roxbury, where many of the victims are uninsured.

Racked by grief, families of homicide victims were often forced to cope with debilitating funeral expenses, said the Rev. Jeffrey Brown, director of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, an anticrime group of clergy, law enforcement officials, and community leaders who spearheaded the fund. Relatives of victims have frequently asked churches and funeral directors to help them bury their loved ones, he said, inspiring the coalition and funeral directors to create the fund.

"We've done a lot of funerals lately, and a lot of poor families were going through this," Brown said.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who attended the dedication of the fund at Eliot Congregational Church in Roxbury, said the charity will "just take this stress away" from the grieving families "and make it a little bit easier."

The state currently pays up to $4,000 for burial and funeral expenses of homicide victims, but that amount is not enough, Brown and funeral directors said.

"In order to have a dignified service, $6,500 [is] the minimum that someone would spend," said Rebecca Ridley, a funeral director at Davis Funeral Home in Roxbury.

Many families of homicide victims ask churches, funeral homes, or neighbors and relatives to help pay for funerals, Brown said.

The $2,000 disbursements will help cover the difference between the money from the state and the funeral cost, allowing families to "not worry about the money and set the time aside to grieve for the lost loved one and begin the process of healing," Brown said.

To be eligible, families must be unable to afford burials, and the homicides must have been in Boston or Cambridge.

The idea for the fund was born of "the sheer anxiety and stress that the families felt about burying their loved ones suddenly," Brown said.

Boston police reported 51 homicides in the city since Jan. 1.

Last year, as crime escalated, Menino temporarily authorized payments for burials of five homicide victims from a charitable fund dedicated to improving Boston parks. The city did not pledge any money to the Ten Point Memorial Fund.

A gravesite costs a minimum of $1,665, Brown said. A casket at the Floyd Williams Funeral Home, which helped create the fund, can cost $2,000 to $10,000. Visitations at a funeral home and memorial service can add thousands of dollars to the cost of a funeral.

Some states, such as Pennsylvania, have programs that help defray burial costs for murder victims. In Tucson, a charity group providing support to relatives of murder victims receives and distributes donations of cemetery plots.

The Massachusetts program that compensates families of homicide victims with up to $4,000 is run by Attorney General Martha Coakley's office.

To qualify, families must cooperate with law enforcement officials investigating homicides and apply for compensation within three years of the homicides. The killings must have been reported to police within five days of the crime. Exceptions are allowed on a case-by-case basis.