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A safe-drug supply will be made available when the city of Vancouver opens two converted community centres shortly to create additional living space for homeless people in the face of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Kennedy Stewart said on Thursday.

Supplying safe drugs was approved by the federal government as an urgent health response to the COVID-19 crisis, Stewart announced, especially as it relates to the city’s Downtown Eastside.

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“We must tackle the poisoned drug epidemic, something that has already cost us more than 1,000 lives,” the mayor said during a news conference in which a number of measures to help DTES residents from contracting or spreading the coronavirus were revealed.

Roundhouse and Coal Harbour are the two community centres being repurposed.

Stewart said the rollout will focus on the 20 to 30 per cent of drug users in the Downtown Eastside who are not connected with health-care providers and existing safe injection sites.