Mourning a Passionate Advocate for the Homeless

A photo of Mary Ann Luby speaking at an event.

Mary Ann Luby died of cancer on November 29 at the Washington Home Hospice at age 70. Photo by Streats.

It is hard to believe she is gone.  

Upstairs by the fireplace at Rachael’s Women’s Center, a haven for homeless and struggling women in the Shaw neighborhood, one of Mary Ann Luby’s brightly-colored little “Listen Up” flyers, with its news of shelters and meetings and free meals, still clings to the wall.  

Downstairs in the community room, Linda Robinson, one of the countless homeless women and men that Luby helped throughout her three decades in the District, shakes her head.  

“We’re gonna dearly miss her,” says Robinson. “Whether it was a place in a shelter, a shared rent, a basement, it was her place to pick up people and find them a place to stay. She was that kind of an advocate.”  

The stoic, funny, patient, passionate Dominican nun was possessed of all the attributes that make a great homeless outreach worker, says Matthew Long, himself an outreach worker, taking a break in the dining room at Rachael’s.  

“Compassion. Attention to detail. A willingness to be a problem solver. And you have to have a bit of detective in you,” he says. “She was awesome.”  

Luby’s sudden passing came as a surprise to many, who saw her hard at work until mid-November. She died of cancer on November 29 at the Washington Home Hospice. She was 70.  

Nearly everyone in the city’s community of homeless people and their advocates seems to have met her, to have known her, to have been touched by her outreach work or advocacy somehow. She was a comforting presence at meal programs and shelters. Wherever there were homeless people, there was slight, wiry Mary Ann, listening to people’s stories, working with them to find out where they needed housing or legal help, or something else, searching to connect them with what they needed.  

“She came over every Tuesday morning for our breakfast program,” recalled Alicia Horton, executive director of Thrive DC. “She really never stopped helping.”  

She was also a forceful voice for the District’s poorest residents at City Hall. But she preferred, whenever possible, to encourage them to speak out for themselves.  

Homeless advocate Eric Sheptock recalls meeting Luby in 1996 amid a discussion among city officials about closing the Franklin School Shelter where Sheptock and over 200 other men were staying. Luby helped the men organize meetings with officials and stage rallies and marches aimed at saving the place. The shelter was eventually closed in spite of their efforts, but the spirit of activism Luby kindled remains, Sheptock said.  

“I had never been an advocate for anyone before meeting her,” says Sheptock, who, says he is not prone to tears but has found himself crying several times since her passing. “The best way for us to go on is to continue her work, to keep fighting for the rights of the homeless and to eradicate homelessness.”  

Luby was born March 7, 1940, in Queens, N.Y., and went on to lead a varied career. She graduated from D’Youville College in 1968 and in 1976 she received a master’s degree in education from Georgia State University. 

 She spent a year as the finance director for a hospital on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and worked as a teacher for 13 years in Atlanta, Philadelphia and New York.  

She began her religious vocation as a Grey Nun of the Sacred Heart. In 1977, she became an Adrian Dominican. She was employed as a social worker in a Buffalo, N.Y., treatment center before coming to Washington, D.C. From 1981 until 1995, she served as director of Rachael’s Women’s Center.  

She did not wait for people in need to come to her. She went out looking for them.  

“She walked the streets and she loved it. And she loved them,” recalls longtime friend and colleague Maria Riley, also a Dominican sister. “She always said, ‘Don’t do this work if you don’t love the people.’”  

Regardless of how broken, desperate or poor, she made it her goal never to lose sight of a person’s humanity, Riley says.  

“It was deep in her faith that we were all equal before God.”  

In 1994, she was instrumental in the founding of the Fair Budget Coalition, a gathering of grassroots community groups, human service providers, advocates, faith organizations, and concerned community members supportive of budget and public policy initiatives helpful to the District’s low wage and homeless residents.  

She also helped establish the nonprofit Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, where she served as an early board member before joining the staff in 1995. For the past 15 years, Luby did homeless outreach work there.  

Luby never took credit for the impact she had on people, says her former boss, Washington Legal Clinic Executive Director Patty Mullahy Fugere. “She always said it was the people. They are the only ones who could transform themselves. Maybe she helped them realize they could. She had a gift.”  

She worked almost until her very last days.  

“She found out not even two weeks ago she had cancer,” says Fugere. “God blessed her with the opportunity to tie up some loose ends, to say goodbyes.”  

At the hospice, sisters from her religious community gathered around her. Her identical twin sister Sabina Prendergast, of Clifton, N.J., was also there, sharing memories and stories of their childhood together.  

“I saw pictures of them in their first communion dresses,” says Fugere. “And their prom pictures. Mary Ann in a frilly lavender prom dress. I wish she was here so I could tease her about it.”  

Luby was that kind of friend. But she was also a fearless and inspirational guide, Fugere says. “At every turn, she has challenged us to be faithful to the people whom we serve.”  

Luby was buried among her religious sisters in Adrian, Michigan, where the Adrian Dominican congregation is based.  

A celebration of Luby’s life and work is being planned on Saturday Dec. 11 at St Aloysius Church, 19 Eye Street, NW at 1 p.m. 


Region |Washington DC

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