Gates of Love Open at St. Peter's Church

Parish Offers Care After Homeless Man's Beating

Many people in Capitol Hill know him as Alex, a homeless man who for decades could be found around St. Peter's Catholic Church. Instead of shooing him away from the stately 19th-century building, parishioners greeted him at First Communion parties, wedding receptions and Sunday coffee hours.

Now Alex Lascaris is at a medical facility, recovering from head wounds suffered in a recent assault. Parishioners at the church, in the 300 block of Second Street SE, have formed prayer circles for him. And police are investigating.

Police said the beating was one in a number of apparently unrelated attacks against homeless people, including a Christmas Eve assault in which a 61-year-old man was killed near the Kennedy Center.

Lascaris, 60, was sleeping on a steam grate June 2 near the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station when he was accosted about 1 a.m. A stranger roused him, Lascaris said, and struck him several times in the head, arm and leg with a metal object. Police have made no arrests.

"Right now, this is wide open, and no apparent motive established," 1st District Cmdr. David Kamperin said.

Lascaris is being treated at Christ House, a 33-bed Northwest Washington nonprofit organization that tends to the medical needs of the homeless. Officials there have seen an uptick in assaults against homeless people since early May; six patients are currently being treated. Typically, there is one such patient at a time.

Janelle Goetcheus, Christ House's medical director, questioned why anyone would "try to hurt people who are already extremely hurting."

In hopes of preventing trouble, "we are encouraging people not to sleep alone, to get two or three people together because of the worry of being attacked," she added.

The D.C. Council is considering legislation to designate assaults on the homeless as hate crimes. Last month, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) signed a similar law. Ohio, California and Texas are considering such laws, according to Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

By design, Lascaris said, he has been without a fixed address for more than three decades.

He has an intense look, with piercing light brown eyes and a smooth face. He appears to be constantly deep in thought. His broken right arm is in a blue sling; two long, thin scars run along the left side of his head where doctors operated to reduce swelling in his brain.

He is shy and self-deprecating with strangers ("If it were Halloween, I'd have the perfect costume," he said of his scars and half-shaven head.) Once he gets going, however, he starts talking rapidly about whatever is on his mind.