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MINORITIES
HOLD OUT AGAINST CHAINS' BIDS
LUCRATIVE
MARKET USUALLY OPTS FOR BURIAL
Published: Sunday, March 21, 1999
Section: LOCAL
Page: 15A
By
MITCH LIPKA Staff Writer
A
decade ago, it would have been unthinkable that a big corporation
would hunger for James Lamar Shuler's little funeral home
in a predominantly black section of Delray Beach.
But
the chains have since come calling, eager for a piece of a
largely untapped market that still leans toward the traditional
-- and more costly -- funeral.
It's
the same story two blocks away at competitor Alfred Straghn's
Tri-City Funeral Home.
Straghn,
71, and Shuler, 45, have the same answer -- one that has become
a familiar refrain from black funeral home owners around the
nation: "No sale."
"I
tell them I'm not interested. Money's not everything,"
said Straghn. "If I do something like that, I'd be letting
a lot of my people down."
The
big chains covet the business generated by minorities.
Non-Hispanic
whites increasingly are opting for the less expensive, lower-profit
cremation -- with only one of three choosing burial in 1997.
Meanwhile, about three of four minorities in Florida choose
burial, which generates the sale of more merchandise and frills
that boost profits.
In
South Florida, with 1.4 million Hispanics and 840,000 blacks,
that's a lot of potential business.
But
with black funeral home owners resisting their overtures,
chains have gone in search of other ways to tap into that
market.
"The
strategy now is to go in the back door," said Sharon
Seay, executive director of the mostly African-American National
Funeral Directors and Morticians Association.
Perhaps
the best known back-door effort came in 1995, when the world's
second-largest chain, Loewen Group Inc. of Burnaby, British
Columbia, forged a marketing relationship with the Nashville-based
National Baptist Convention USA, the nation's largest association
of black churches.
In
exchange for the convention's official blessing, Loewen trained
convention members as sales representatives and paid a 5 percent
commission on each convention-won sale into NBC's Christian
Education Fund.
The
deal collapsed in 1997, when the NBC president, the Rev. Henry
Lyons, was accused of bilking $3.1 million from Loewen.
Lyons
was convicted on state charges of grand theft and racketeering
in February. Last week, he pleaded guilty to five federal
felony charges, including fraud and tax evasion; 49 other
counts were dropped.
Before
the deal collapsed, however, it showed signs of financial
promise: In two years, Loewen generated $1.2 million in sales
to NBC members.
The
chains have tried other routes to get blacks' business, including
starting their own lines of black-oriented businesses, hiring
black funeral directors and aggressive presales -- a tactic
perfected by the chains but rarely employed by black homes.
"That's
where the corporations are going to eat the independents alive,"
Seay said.
The
reason for resistance by the black funeral home owners is
simple, she said.
"Mostly
it's because they want to remain independent," Seay said.
"They feel that if they go to the corporate structure,
it would change the element of what the business was based
on. They don't want their name to be tarnished."
Lance
Yost, founder of Eulogy International, a Richmond, Va., consulting
firm that helps consumers cut funeral expenses, agrees with
Seay's take.
"It's
sort of a last stand," he said. "They don't want
to give their businesses over to corporations run by white
people."
The
chains are having considerably more success with South Florida's
growing Hispanic market.
Like
blacks, Hispanics with strong ties to tradition are likely
to choose burial over cremation.
Stewart
Enterprises Inc., the world's third-largest chain, is firmly
entrenched in the huge Hispanic funeral market in Miami-Dade
County. The company owns the Rivero and Caballero homes, two
of the highest-volume funeral businesses in the Miami area.
Both
Loewen and Service Corporation International, the two largest
chains, court Hispanic business in Broward.
But
an independent who leases three Loewen funeral homes has made
the strongest push toward the area's growing Hispanic population.
Mark
Panciera renamed homes in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Oakland
Park -- christening them Funeraria Panciera. The new signs
are helping him gain entry into the lucrative market.
"We've
replaced signage on them because we've seen different people
moving into those locations," Panciera said. "We
offer our services to everyone, but it seems like that community
reaches out to those funeral homes."
Although
he is an Italian-American, he said he recognizes his name
has "a Latin flavor."
Jon
Levinson, SCI's vice president for Broward County, said his
company wants to serve every community -- regardless of race
or ethnicity.
"Just
like anything else, where there are people who die -- and
we can provide service as the neighborhood funeral home --
we look to buy or build," he said.
Both
Straghn and Shuler see the role of funeral director as something
larger in the black community: Theirs is a higher calling,
not just a business.
They
are familiar faces in a community that is still largely segregated.
And they understand how to work with those who can't afford
much.
Shuler
and Straghn agree it's unlikely that large white companies
will ever control the small black funeral homes.
"The
only business you can depend upon going to that's black-owned
in your community is the funeral home," Shuler said.
PUBLISHED MONDAY, MARCH 22, 1999
Because of a reporter's error, the name of a funeral home
chain appeared incorrectly several times in a package of stories
beginning on Page 1A in Sunday's editions. The correct name
of the company is Service Corp. International. We regret the
error.
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