In three months, The Beacon has quickly become a refuge for the homeless, bringing comfort to some of the community’s most fragile individuals, but also attracting predators and crime while testing an operating model that relies almost exclusively on volunteers.
On Oct. 16, Dane County and partners opened the day resource center offering showers, laundry, restrooms, kitchen, mail operation, lockers, food, computer lab, family space and offices for nonprofits at the property, five blocks from the Capitol at 615 E. Washington Ave.
The operator, Catholic Charities Madison, had expected usage to gradually grow to about 150 a day. But on the first day, 185 people showed up, with numbers up to 250 daily when its bitterly cold.