They have been fixtures over the last two years in the thick of the open drug market known as Mass. and Cass: armed, uniformed guards and their marked vehicles patrolling for signs of violence or property damage.
They are not police officers, though, and they don’t make arrests. None of them have fired their weapon while on patrol in Mass. and Cass. They are members of a private security force that the Boston Public Health Commission has contracted to help secure the area — at a cost of more than $2.3 million this calendar year alone.
The health commission confirmed to the Globe that it first hired the company, Ware Security of Norwood, in November 2021 to provide what a spokesperson called “additional exterior security” around a homeless shelter and engagement center the organization operated on Atkinson Street, by the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.
At the time, the area had become overwhelmed by makeshift tents and shelters in what had become Boston’s version of a large “tent city,” with scores of people living on the streets and openly selling and injecting drugs. The city has several times cleared the streets of the encampment, most recently earlier in November, and police are monitoring the area from a 24-hour mobile command center on Atkinson Street.
The health commission’s contract with Ware Security is to set expire Dec. 31, but the commission plans to continue to pay for some level of security into the next year, spokesperson Jonathan Latino said. The organization recently signed a contract through June with New England Security, which provides similar services for a private business organization in the area. The health commission contract with the firm does not specify a final cost, but it spells out requirements for posting security guards at health commission sites, including a new homeless center on Massachusetts Avenue.
When the health commission, a taxpayer-funded, quasi-city organization, closes out its contract with Ware at the end of the year, it will have paid the company more than $3.1 million in total, according to documents reviewed by the Globe. Latino said the funding has come from COVID-19 relief funds the city received under the American Rescue Plan stimulus package.
Health advocates and some community leaders said the use of public funds for private security is unfortunate but needed for public safety, a reflection of the violence and lawlessness that has taken hold in the area. Though the city removed the tent encampments in January 2022, shortly after Ware Security was hired, they returned several times, and vagrancy continues to plague the neighborhood. The engagement center was closed after a series of stabbings. Several social-service organizations pulled their outreach workers from the area over the summer because of concerns for their safety.
Latino said the security work has “been vital to promoting public safety in the area and supporting our outreach workers and clinical partners to connect individuals to housing, health care, life saving harm reduction services, and other supports.”
But City Council President Ed Flynn said he is “concerned” about putting so many resources to private security on city streets.
“Although I understand these private companies provide security services to residents, businesses, and the public, they should not be used as a replacement of Boston police,” Flynn said. He added that the concern for safety is a sign that the city should continue to hire more police officers.
Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, also took issue with the ongoing use of private firms, saying, “They’re subcontracting our work out.”
“If the City of Boston is in need of police intervention on a City of Boston street, that falls under the sole jurisdiction of the men and women of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association,” he said.
Ware representatives declined to comment, saying they didn’t have permission from the health commission.
New England Security also declined to comment.
Latino said the contract with Ware increased over time: At first, two guards patrolled the health commission sites, and then four began patrolling in March 2022. As conditions worsened again earlier this year, with tents popping back up on Atkinson Street, the health commission paid Ware to deploy seven guards during the day and eight overnight, he said.
The contract with the company calls for the security workers to be “highly visible,” and also “empathetic” to those living on the streets. Latino said there have been no complaints against the Ware guards.
The area has been a health and public safety concern for well over a decade. City officials have repeatedly embarked on sweeps to break down the encampments, but they return. In August, Mayor Michelle Wu said the area had reached “a new level of public safety alarm,” leading her to introduce changes to city law aimed at making it easier to remove tents more quickly.
After the City Council approved her proposal in October, the city cleared tents and closed Atkinson Street to public congregation while seeking to connect people on the street with services.
On a recent evening, a man in an SUV with Ware insignia watched over the area, as a few people straggled to and from the shelter. The Boston Police Department mobile operations center was parked on Atkinson, where tents previously stood. Several police cruisers were also stationed nearby, their blue emergency lights flashing.
The Police Department did not respond to a request for comment about the department’s interactions with private security.
The Newmarket Business Improvement District has a contract with New England Security for patrols in the area. Executive director Sue Sullivan said her organization spends nearly $1 million a year on the security contract, which was first signed in June 2022. The Business Improvement District is funded by an additional assessment on the area’s businesses, and that money pays for the security, as well as street cleaning and other upkeep.
The private security, Sullivan said, “is probably the biggest benefit” to the businesses. She said New England Security has received 39,000 calls this year related to Mass. and Cass, ranging from reports of overdoses to complaints of people breaking into the companies’ trucks, or individuals causing trouble in the McDonald’s drive-thru line.
Sullivan’s group’s contract is for unarmed guards, though individuals who have licenses to carry firearms can, and sometimes do.
She praised New England Security, saying that its guards make a point of connecting with people on the street, and that they’re willing to handle any type of issue.
“I’ve seen them disperse crowds of 30 or more just by showing up and saying, ‘Hey, you guys have got to go,’ ” she said. “Most people, believe it or not, are not looking for an altercation.”
Sean Cotter can be reached at [email protected] him @cotterreporter.