Mary Ellen Hombs was the deputy director of the U.S.

Interagency Council on Homelessness The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) is an independent federal agency within the U.S. executive branch that leads the implementation of the federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness. USICH is advised by a Co ...

, a governmental entity that is made up of the heads of various federal departments and agencies with the mission of developing a comprehensive federal approach to end homelessness. She served from 2003 to 2009.THE COUNCIL SAYS GOODBYE TO DEPUTY DIRECTOR MARY ELLEN HOMBS
''The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness e-newsletter'', July 17, 2009 Hombs was the primary author of ''Homelessness in America: A Forced March to Nowhere'' with

Mitch Snyder Mitch Snyder (August 14, 1943 – July 3, 1990) was an American advocate for the homeless. He was the subject of a made-for-television 1986 biopic, '' Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story'', starring Martin Sheen. History Snyder grew up in Flat ...

. She was an important member of the Community for Creative Non-Violence, founded by J. Edward Guinan. During the 1970s and 1980s she lived there, along with Snyder, Carol Fennelly, Harold Moss, and Lin Romano. A 1981 Washington Post article featuring the efforts of Hombs, spoke of her sacrificing dreams of a career, marriage, or normal middle-class lifestyle in order to serve the Washington, D.C. homeless population seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days per year. Hombs stated her goal as convincing churches and the government to provide shelters enticing enough that “even the most isolated, the most hardened person could feel the desire to come out of the cold.” She assisted the CCNV by cooking meals to feed over six hundred people a day and helping run the organization's Drop-In Center. In 1995, Mary Ellen Hombs donated her papers to the Special Collections Research Center of The

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

. The collection is composed of correspondence, reports, photographs, articles, flyers, and court documents, much of which is related to the work of the CCNV.Guide to the Mary Ellen Hombs Papers, 1971-1986
Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University

Selected works

* ''AIDS Crisis in America: A Reference Handbook'' by Mary Ellen Hombs, Eric K. Lerner, Hardcover, Abc-Clio Inc, (1-57607-070-0) 1992 * ''American Homelessness: A Reference Handbook'' by Mary Ellen Hombs, Hardcover, Abc-Clio Inc, (1-57607-247-9) 1990 * ''Homelessness in America: A Forced March to Nowhere'' by Mary Ellen Hombs, Softcover, Community for Creative, (0-686-39879-3) 1982 * ''Welfare Reform: A Reference Handbook'' by Mary Ellen Hombs, Hardcover, Abc-Clio Inc, (0-87436-844-8) 1996

References

External links

Guide to the Mary Ellen Hombs Papers, 1971-1986
Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University {{DEFAULTSORT:Hombs, Mary Ellen Living people Year of birth missing (living people)