The number of bodies that go unclaimed every year in Ontario continues to reach new record levels, according to the latest figures from the Office of the Chief Coroner.
In 2019, 438 bodies recovered across the province went unspoken for. That’s despite the efforts of health-care professionals and the coroner’s office to find next of kin or another “claimant.”
After the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual number of unclaimed bodies in Ontario surged in 2020 to a then record high of 691 — and that sombre statistic has only continued to climb each following year.
Last year, 1,710 bodies went unclaimed in the province — more than triple the number recorded in 2019.
It wasn’t always like this. Though the numbers have been trending upward since 2008, the period between 2019 and 2025 betrays an unmistakable escalation.
“The first thought is obviously there’s some socio-economic issues involved,” said Craig Boals, general manager of Cataraqui Cemetery and Funeral Services in Kingston.
Last year, Boals and his colleagues handled 14 unclaimed bodies in the Kingston region, which includes nearby communities such as Brockville. The region recorded 58 total cases in 2025, up from 40 the year before and 26 in 2019.
“I’m surprised to see that many,” Boals said of the most recent figures, adding that he wonders whether they reflect an “uptick” in unhoused people.
The populous Toronto region went from having 286 cases in 2019 to 1,138 last year, accounting for two-thirds of all provincial cases.
But every region of Ontario has experienced an increase in unclaimed bodies since 2019.
The Sudbury region had no cases in 2019 and recorded 42 last year, while the Ottawa region topped 100 cases for the second year in a row in 2025.
The “huge” overall increase is “disturbing and troubling,” said Nathan Romagnoli, the founder and funeral director of eco Cremation & Burial Services, which serves the Greater Golden Horseshoe region that includes Toronto and Hamilton.
“There are changes that are required immediately to start to bring those numbers down,” he said.
‘On the fringe’
The term “unclaimed” is actually a misnomer, because when no one from the public comes forward to claim a body, the Office of Chief Coroner steps in to make sure it’s properly laid to rest at a cemetery, even if it’s without a tombstone or marker.
“We are the last voice and we want to make sure that we provide [a] respectful and dignified opportunity for them to be buried or have a cremation,” said Dr. Dirk Huyer, Ontario’s chief coroner.
Funeral director Jean-René Berthiaume says that no matter whether family members have come forward to claim a body or not, each person is treated with respect and given a burial service.
There are many reasons provided by the coroner’s office for why bodies ultimately go unclaimed.
The breakdown of factors differs from region to region. The majority of unclaimed deceased have next of kin, but relatives are sometimes unable to claim the body for such reasons as financial constraints, health-related difficulties and estrangement, according to the coroner’s service.
In the Toronto region, however, the most common reason cited in 2025 was that no next of kin could be identified or found.
Romagnoli suspects social isolation exacerbated by the pandemic is partly to blame, adding that estrangement is “most certainly an overlying blanket” atop many of the reasons laid out below by the coroner’s service (beyond the categories where estrangement is a known factor)
“People that were already on the fringe have even sort of worsened,” Romagnoli said.
In the Hamilton and Kingston regions last year, an inability to identify or locate next of kin accounted for half or more of the unclaimed cases.
Huyer said that while a number of unclaimed people are precariously housed, “that is not the trend of why the numbers are going up.”
Other barriers
In the Thunder Bay region where 26 people went unclaimed last year (up from five in 2019), half of the cases in 2025 were due to next of kin being unable to claim the body for financial reasons.
Even with the lowest-cost option offered by funeral homes, “there still are a number of families that [don’t] have the resources to meet that,” Huyer said.
Some families have reported challenges seeking funding from sources such as social services, the Office of the Chief Coroner (OCC) added via email.
The office also mentioned that, compared to in the past, funeral homes are reportedly allowing fewer “non-directly related next of kin,” such as cousins and aunts, to claim a body.
“This is the decision of funeral homes, not the OCC,” the coroner’s service said.
Where a person dies determines who is responsible for the next-of-kin (NOK) search.
If the person died in a hospital or long-term care home in what’s called a “non-coroner case,” it’s the facility that takes up the search. Fifty-nine per cent of searches are non-coroner cases.
In all other cases, it’s a dedicated team from the coroner’s service that does the search.
Police play a role, too, including searching through missing persons reports.
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Hospitals and long‑term care homes are expected to routinely collect next-of-kin information at the time of admission, but in many unclaimed bodies cases, “individuals did not identify a contact person often due to estrangement, personal choices, or having outlived their family.”
The coroner’s service reviews the search done by facilities in non-coroner cases “for completeness and thoroughness within the context of the NOK reasonable search expectations,” the coroner’s office said.
Romagnoli said he recognizes “a significant amount of human effort” goes toward preventing a body from going unclaimed and that there are cases where “there literally is nobody” to claim.
Still, he has found himself questioning how robust the search process is, in part because of how overwhelmed health-care professionals are in general right now.
Romagnoli said there has also been more than one occasion where family have gone “bonkers” and asked him, “Why haven’t you called? In the last six months I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting. Who are you and why haven’t you called?”
“There’s an obvious disconnect here,” Romagnoli said. “There’s something wrong in the chain of help.”
Huyer said “more resources” could be “present” throughout the system, but added: “More resources isn’t going to change the fact that people have made decisions for various reasons to not proceed with providing disposition instructions.”
Cases in which a family comes forward after burial are rare, but when it happens it sparks a review of whether any improvements can be made, his office added via email.
“In the majority of these rare cases, families still do not claim their relative due to factors such as estrangement or financial constraints.”
The Ministry of the Solicitor General declined to comment for this story, directing questions about next-of-kin search capacity to the coroner’s service.
