Three days after banning the homeless from pitching tents at Mass and Cass, city leaders announced plans to spend roughly $6.2 million to address the squatting and drug activity that continues to fester there.

The funds, part of a $16.5 million homelessness grant the city received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will go toward housing 105 people from the area of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. Partnering with the city in this effort will be Eliot Community Services.

“A lot of the individuals at Mass Cass are not homeless; they’re there for services and other reasons,” Sheila Dillon, the city’s chief of housing, said after a Thursday press conference in downtown Boston. “But we do know who has no place to go at Mass Cass, and we will be targeting these resources to those individuals.”

This targeted population represents roughly 28% of the 372 unhoused individuals that will benefit from the federal grant in Boston — a significant investment that is part of the city’s “housing-centered approach to the intersecting crises of unsheltered homelessness, substance-use disorder and mental health” taking place at Mass and Cass, the mayor’s office said in a press statement.

According to this statement, the Mass and Cass funds will not only give these people respite from the streets, they will also provide medical stabilization and a housing pathway.

Boston’s plans to provide housing opportunities for people who live and congregate around the Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass area come three days after the city told homeless individuals that they could no longer set up tents there, a past policy that was not enforced during the cold winter months.

Prior to Monday’s clear-out, the homeless typically packed up their tents and left the area while streets were cleaned five days a week, but returned to set up camp again after 12:30 p.m. The new policy, described by the city as voluntary, allows these individuals to return, but bans their tents, officials said.

However, the tents have returned since that time, according to Mayor Michelle Wu. Although numbers are down, she said there were still roughly 16 tents set up on Wednesday. Some were also there on Thursday, but the latest figures were not immediately provided by her office.

Wu said the city is working with the Boston Police Department on enforcing the tent ban. While this effort strives to respect and show dignity toward the affected homeless in the area, the mayor said it’s also aimed at preventing another encampment from occurring at Mass and Cass.

For “many years,” between 2014 and January 2022, there was essentially a “fortified encampment” there. People were living in tent structures with wood pallets and propane tanks, every day for 24 hours, Wu said.

There was no running water and no heat besides propane tanks, which was causing “a lot of dangerous situations around diseases that were spreading from rodents being in the area” and fires that were occurring inside the tents, Wu said.

Since January 2022, there has not been an encampment, but people have still been putting up tents multiple times a week, she said.

At this point, Wu said the city is moving to enforce the tent ban, because these structures had been linked to too many instances of illegal activity happening within them, or medical emergencies that could not be addressed due to lack of visibility.

“The congregation of folks in one area, the potential for drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other illegal violence and other illegal behavior, that is something that we really need to address,” Wu said.

She added, “We will not be having a large congregation site for illegal activity and we’re going to continue working with everyone to identify shelter housing.”