The Beacon - a light in Madison's community safety story

Downtown Madison, Wisconsin - a beautiful city surrounded by lakes.
Site of the 2025 Problem-Oriented Policing conference

 By Greg Saville

In every city, there are places that test the limits of our problem-solving. In Madison, Wisconsin, one of those places in the past was The Beacon — a “daytime drop-in shelter and resource center operated by Catholic Charities”. It provides daily services to more than 200 men, women, and children experiencing homelessness, with the goal of supporting their transition toward stability and greater well-being.

Last week, following our SafeGrowth/CPTED presentation at the annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference, I had the honor to tour through The Beacon with some SafeGrowth students in a recent course, along with my long-time colleague, retired RCMP Sgt. John Lyons, and meet the new center manager Chris Watson and program director Nici Hawkins. 

 

Inside the Beacon property - access control to ensure safety and comfort
for those experiencing homelessness

What we saw was more than a resource center. It was the outcome of a collaborative journey — one that began in a SafeGrowth training class and has since grown into a community success story.  

FROM TRAINING TO REAL-WORLD RESULTS

Last year, when we first introduced SafeGrowth and CPTED in Madison, we used case studies from other cities to show what happens when residents, police, and community partners design solutions together. Class partipants used those case studies to form teams and select a Madison project to work on over a few months.

Garden and vegitable/flower growing area inside the Beacon 

One of the SafeGrowth teams picked The Beacon as their project site, knowing the center was experiencing serious challenges: high calls for service, frayed staff–police relationships, and public disorder spilling into the streets. Prior attempts to collaborate had been less than successful and the problems were not improving.

The SafeGrowth team didn’t drop in a pre-packaged answer, like simple CPTED checklists. They started with site visits, interviews, and safety audits. They listened to Beacon staff and clients and eventually, they partnered with them. They mapped the problems: loitering and drug dealing at the rear entrance, unsafe outdoor areas, poor access control, and strained police–staff relationships

Children's safe play area for families suffering homelessness

Common sitting area, lockers for storing property and restrooms

EARLY BREAKTHROUGHS 

Several strategies emerged quickly:

• Closing the rear entrance and welcoming everyone through the front doors for proper check-in, reducing anonymity and disorder.
• Parking changes on the adjacent block to disrupt drug dealing and loitering.
• Weekly walkthroughs and de-escalation training for Beacon staff, helping rebuild trust with police

What made the difference was not just the fixes, but the teamwork: police, Beacon staff, neighbors, and city officials working side by side in a SafeGrowth team. When the Beacon staff attended presentations at the conclusion of the SafeGrowth training, they were able to develop a new kind of partnership that still exists – indeed, it has expanded.

Computer facilities helping people find jobs, resources, and skills training

Laundry facilities along with many social services available

RESULTS THAT MATTER 

The results were dramatic. After SafeGrowth strategies were implemented in August 2024, calls for service dropped by nearly 40% the following year. This means that, not only were those in and around The Beacon safer in their daily lives, but there were financial savings in police resources. 

For Beacon staff and clients, the changes meant safer spaces, clearer boundaries, and stronger trust with the officers who walked their halls. And now, The Beacon is taking further steps: introducing some redesigns to the property, adding staff roles, upgrading security, coordinating with new outreach teams, and even launching volunteer cleanup programs.

Beacon manager Chris Watson describing the many resources and
services to help people transition off the street 

LIGHTING THE PATH FORWARD 

The Beacon’s success isn’t the end of the story. It’s a work in progress — a living example of how SafeGrowth works when ideas move from paper to practice. The center has been providing services for a long time and the SafeGrowth project helped support that tremendous work by establishing partnerships with police and ensuring safety in and around the property. They are still refining operations and building partnerships. But the transformation so far shows the power of collaborative problem-solving.

Our visit to the Beacon, coincided with the annual problem-oriented policing conference, honoring the concept founded by University of Wisconsin/Madison professor Professor Herman Goldstein. In a time when cities around the world struggle to confront homelessness, this example shines a light on how it can become a collaborative strategy.

As Goldstein warned decades ago, “police have been particularly susceptible to the ‘means over ends’ syndrome” — focusing more on internal systems than on whether they actually reduce harm. 

Our SafeGrowth presentation took place at the 2025 POP conference just down the street from The Beacon

What the Madison SafeGrowth team showed at The Beacon is that when community, police, and service providers shift focus together on outcomes, real change happens.

A beacon is not the destination. It’s the light that guides the way. In Madison, thanks to the police department, the SafeGrowth team, along with Beacon staff, and their partners, that light is shining a little brighter.