Cuyahoga County Indigent Veteran Burial and Memorial Affairs

Ohio requires each county veterans service commission to bury or cremate a veteran, or a veteran's parent, spouse or surviving spouse, who died without the means to pay, with the county paying up to $1,000 (Revised Code 5901.25 to 5901.27; see the Ohio entry). How Cuyahoga County runs it. The commission's Memorial Affairs office pays up to $1,000 on an application made by the funeral home, where the veteran had no savings or insurance to cover the funeral and the family cannot pay the bill in full. It adds a condition of its own: the funeral bill must not exceed $7,500. The statute caps only the county's share, at $1,000, and leaves the rest to the family, so a family planning a funeral above $7,500 should ask before signing. The page describes the benefit for the veteran; a family burying a veteran's spouse or parent should ask, since the statute covers them too. Free county graves. Cleveland Memorial Gardens and West Park cemeteries have graves in veterans' sections for indigent veterans only. Other memorial help. The office helps families get the government headstone, burial flag, Presidential Memorial Certificate, military honors and burial at Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery, finds DD-214s for funeral homes (fax 216-698-2650 or [email protected]), gives a Blue Star service banner to the family of a county resident called to active duty, and handles the payment of up to $500 a year to each chartered veterans post toward Memorial Day expenses that Revised Code 307.66 requires of the county.