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The province has committed $200,000 to create a team tasked with reducing crime while monitoring the city’s only safe drug consumption site.

Health Minister Sarah Hoffman made the announcement just hours after a report from police showing the crime rate in the Beltline has skyrocketed near the Safeworks Harm Reduction Program, located inside the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.

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Hoffman said the grant to Calgary’s Alpha House Society is to create a Downtown Outreach Addictions Partnership (DOAP) team “assigned to the downtown core and specifically watching the perimeter of the Chumir and surrounding neighbourhoods.”

“I think it’s really important that people feel safe in their community and that means ensuring we’re doing important health-care work inside the building, but also increasing services in and around the neighbourhood,” Hoffman said.

While drug crimes in the rest of the city are declining, the report on “crime and disorder” shows a 250-metre zone near the site has become ground zero for drug, violent and property crimes in the downtown.