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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez teamed up in New York on Monday to introduce $2 billion in special Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to aid families who have not been able to afford proper funerals for their loved ones when they passed away as the result of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Each family can get reimbursed up to $7,000 for funeral expenses with $260 million of those funds being directly allocated to New Yorkers. These funds are retroactive and can apply to anyone who has lost a loved as the result of the pandemic from Jan. 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2020.
While this first set of funding is retroactive, both Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez are fighting to make these funds continue until the pandemic is over in the next set of funding to come from FEMA.
“Many of these families because of Covid don’t have money for a proper funeral and a proper burial. And that is just awful and inhumane” Schumer said when describing why the funding is necessary.
Ocasio-Cortez made the issue personal by saying, “I lost my dad when I was about 18 years old. And the funeral expenses haunted and followed my family along with many other families in a similar position for years.”
Later, asked if these funds would apply to undocumented families, Ocasio-Cortez said yes and explained why those communities should not be afraid to apply for these funds.
“I think it’s completely understandable why they’re that fear there especially over the last four years of targeting of our immigrant families. But I think right now our families, especially under a Biden administration, a Democratic senate and a Democratic house that is prioritizing immigrant rights, including those who are undocumented, to not have fear, and to not allow that fear to further marginalize our community,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Schumer said Ocasio-Cortez brought this issue to his attention last April. These disaster relief funds are similar to the program FEMA created for families after Hurricane Sandy.
The news conference took place in Queens, New York, an area hit especially hard by the pandemic, underscoring how communities of color, working class families and immigrant communities have been disproportionally affected.
