The county makes a final push to spread word of $100K in untouched Covid funeral aid.

Last November, Monterey County launched a Covid-19 Funeral and Burial Assistance program that offered $350,000 in financial aid to residents who had laid a loved one to rest because of the virus. Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency was offering a similar program, like most federal initiatives it is only eligible to U.S. citizens and legal residents. The county’s program, by contrast, was available to undocumented residents – who were disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, but found the FEMA program out of their reach.

Yet nearly a year later, the county program remains untouched, with not a single grant awarded. Now, with the deadline for applications approaching on Oct. 1, Monterey County is making a final push to get people signed up before the money is no longer available.

That effort includes a predominantly Spanish-language marketing campaign – including newspaper ads, radio spots and email blasts – as well as community outreach through more than 100 local nonprofits, churches and community organizations, according to county spokesperson Nick Pasculli. Interested residents can apply for the program by calling the county’s dedicated phone line, 831-356-3137, between 8-11am Monday through Wednesday.

Since the start of the program, a total of 17 people have applied for funeral assistance funds as of Aug. 8. Yet 15 of those applicants were found to be eligible for FEMA assistance – which, like the county’s program, reimburses up to $9,000 in expenses per funeral – and were referred to the federal agency. (FEMA has awarded nearly $1.7 million in funeral assistance on behalf of 313 decedents in Monterey County to date, according to an agency spokesperson.) The other two applicants never completed the application process, Pasculli says.

That means that the county funds have sat unused by families and friends of any of the 852 people who have died from Covid in Monterey County. In April, the Board of Supervisors reallocated $250,000 of the funds toward the county’s $728,000 storm relief program, which has already distributed more than $450,000 to residents impacted by last winter’s weather. While some supervisors argued for transferring all $350,000 of the unused funeral program money toward storm aid efforts, they agreed to keep the program intact with $100,000.

“Additional time was needed to do more outreach,” says Supervisor Luis Alejo, who advocated for maintaining the funeral program. “We know there have been dozens of undocumented Covid victims, but so many families did not know this [program] was available to them.”

Part of the program’s challenges may lie with how it has been administered. While the county often partners with community-based nonprofits to manage such initiatives, it has run the funeral program in-house – only partnering with the Watsonville-based nonprofit Ventures to help process the distribution of funds, not outreach and applicant vetting.

With no aid yet distributed, Ventures has not received any compensation for its work with the program; its contract with the county calls for a $30 administration fee per beneficiary, with a cap at 600 beneficiaries, or $18,000.