In the wake of a harshly cold winter, a recent wave of intrusions by homeless individuals into New Haven-owned properties has raised safety concerns.

At a board meeting Tuesday, Elm City Communities, New Haven's housing authority, allocated more than $300,000 to hire security guards for properties that have recently had break-ins by homeless individuals.

Two weeks earlier, New Haven Police Sergeant Chris Alvarado flagged break-ins into unoccupied houses at a Fair Haven Community Management Team meeting. Alvarado, who is Fair Haven's district manager, explained that the neighborhood had been troubled by many of these break-ins in recent months.

Officer Christian Bruckhart, a spokesperson for the New Haven Police Department, described the break-ins as an "endemic" issue in the city.

"These are not problems where we want to have people arrested and put away for the rest of their life," Bruckhart said. "[But] some of these people [are] in the throes of addiction. They get out and they're immediately going back to the same thing."

The break-ins generally fall into two categories, according to Alvarado. The first is homeless people seeking shelter from the cold in unoccupied houses, while the second group is made up of people hoping to steal storm grates, water pipes or anything else that can be sold as scrap metal.

The main targets of these break-ins are foreclosed homes, houses under construction and empty properties owned by the Livable City Initiative, New Haven's housing enforcement agency, according to Bruckhart.

Alvarado said he and other NHPD district managers are in frequent contact with LCI officials about unoccupied properties that could be impacted by break-ins. LCI did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Bruckhart and Alvarado noted that the break-ins are largely perpetuated by a handful of individuals. One repeat offender they pointed to has been arrested for four break-ins in the past three months, most recently on Feb. 1 and 9. When NHPD officers extended city-run social services to the offender, he declined the offer, according to Alvarado.

Since November, the NHPD has used an online portal called Familiar Faces to keep track of people who are repeatedly committing quality-of-life offenses. The portal is still in its trial phase, according to Alvarado, but he hopes the NHPD will soon collaborate with city and court officials to get repeat offenders court-mandated treatment.

"This isn't for first-time offenders -- [it's for] the repeat offenders ... there's really no other means for them to get better if they're refusing services and they're not doing anything to better themselves," Alvarado said. "At the end of the day, the goal here is to get help. It's not just to punish people."

At the board meeting on Tuesday afternoon, Elm City Communities authorized a contract with Spark Security to hire unarmed security guards for a number of their properties. The contract is only for a year, with no opportunity to renew, giving Elm City Communities time to try to address the root of home break-ins.

The city's crisis support team said they have not received reports of homeless individuals breaking into homes, according to Deborah Cox, who works at New Haven's Continuum of Care, which manages COMPASS.

She explained that NHPD would have contacted COMPASS, which offers crisis support to those struggling with mental health or substance abuse, if they thought individuals breaking into homes could particularly benefit from COMPASS's services, such as getting connected to treatment or therapy. Otherwise, individuals looking for shelter would be directed to one of New Haven's warming centers or homeless shelters.