It was a Wednesday morning I received a phone call from my partner. I thought it would be a “Happy 9 months baby” being it our 9 month anniversary, but instead she said “ Remember that kid Craig from last year, he died last night.” I was so surprised it was like a nightmare.  You never want to hear those words until you are in an old age.  His funeral was just a couple days later. He was buried on my graduation day which was Saturday. They sure buried him fast. When looking at him you would never be able to tell he was in a car accident. The back of his neck was really bad is what the mortician said. He died instantly. And his family was ready to bury him instantly.  Normally funerals are in a week of death unless you live in Detroit where the time between death and a wake could take months.

     Detroit has been in an economic downfall since the 1980s and since then the city has been making budget cuts from security guards on busses to the 1000 jobs cut to help the budget deficit. One of the cuts they made was to the city morgue. “The morgue budget has been cut to $6.2 million from $8.1 million in 2007, and its staff reduced to 31 from 52, said Dennis Niemiec, a spokesman for the state’s largest county.” (1) The people in the morgue are being overloaded with  bodies and this paper work. Its not only unfair to the people working but to the families that waiting for the information on why their loved one had died.  No deserves to wait to bury someone.

     Detroit is making important budget cuts because of the cash crisis . “Detroit Mayor Dave Bing says Council’s budget cuts will force his administration to scale back bus service, close the People Mover, and eliminate some recreation programs like Hart Plaza’s summer festivals.” (2) We are in a crisis’s yes but when does the budget cuts become too important to cut? Let’s look at the busses budget cut of no more cops riding a couple months ago. Detroit had cut cops riding the buses to add security to busses and then they cut it and just a couple of months later a bus driver was attacked.  If the council hadn’t made this budget cut then this wouldn’t have happened. If security isn’t added to the busses this will happen again.  The Detroit Electronic Music Festival brings in 99,282 (3) people in Hart Plaza. The amount of money that this festival brings in is enormous and to think that we will just let it go. To give up these festivals is not only breaking tradition but also bringing in so much money and to stop all that will hurt our economy. Detroit has been the motor city for a long time and that hurts to say but it has ruined out ozone above us. Not to mention the amount of gas it cost to go around places in a car is ridiculous. If the buses aren’t safe and gas is to high why not take the people mover across the city from the Joe Louis Arena from a Red Wings game to the Greek Town Casino for so drinks and a good time. If we cut the people mover we cut a transportation that is not only awesome but sometimes necessary for transportation.  With these cuts we can see how Detroit is falling apart even more than with the economic crisis.

     The budget problems of transportation and music festivals are all important but the most important is the morgue because they truly affect people’s emotion.   It takes so long for the morgue do it its job because the budget cuts had cut jobs and the amount it takes to get their loved ones out of the morgue. “The remains of the following people are at the Wayne County morgue, their next of kin unknown. “If you have information, call (313) 833-2568.” (4) This is the quote then followed by a list of exactly twenty people still in the morgue all the way back from 2005. No one has come to claim them.  Even when the families come to claim them  they don’t have the money to get them out.  The remains of the following people are at the Wayne County morgue, their next of kin unknown. "It's devastating to a family not to be able to take care of their own," said Darrell Vickers, who along with his wife went down to themorgue to identify his aunt's body. "But there's really no way to come up with that kind of cash in today's society. There's just no way." (5) It is just said that he doesn’t have money to get his aunt out of the morgue because the rates to get someone out of the morgue is outrageous.  

This budget cut is crossing the line, literally. When you die in the Detroit city limits it does not matter where you or your family reside.