A new supervised consumption site is now operating inside a building in the 200-block of Lansdowne Street.
Interior Health confirmed overdose prevention services are being provided in a temporary space at 235 Lansdowne St. while a permanent site is being constructed at the same address, a building home to a number of unrelated IH offices.
“Services include supervised consumption, distribution of harm-reduction supplies and connections to other mental health and substance-use services both through Interior Health and community agencies,” an IH spokesperson said in an email reply to a query from Castanet Kamloops.
In February, IH revealed plans for a brick-and-mortar supervised consumption site in the city. Previously, supervised consumption services were housed in an RV, typically parked outside the Crossroads Inn at Sixth Avenue and Seymour Street.
Eighty-seven people died in Kamloops last year due to illicit drug toxicity — a record number that pegs the Tournament Capital among the most impacted communities per capita in B.C.