A mobile safe-injection site in downtown Kamloops will be relocated over night after concerns were raised by downtown businesses.

City councillor Arjun Singh says Interior Health will now be keeping the safe-injection van parked in Mission Flats, by a supportive housing complex on Mission Flats Road.

“It’s not the only solution I think to that issue there, but it’s something we should definitely try. And it’s responsive, very responsive I think, to really strong concerns of people in the neighbourhood, businesses had, about activity – bad activity – around that corner,” Singh says.

“These issues spike up in the community from time to time, in an intolerable way for folks in certain smaller areas. So I think we have to be responsive to that for sure. There’s a notion of keeping everything in a bit of a balance.”

Singh says issues of vagrancy spike up from time to time and says the city has to respond when it comes up.

The safe-injection van has been parked downtown at 6th and Victoria when it hasn’t been in use, and recently business owners in that area led a meeting – which included members from city council, Interior Health, RCMP and other groups – to raise concerns about vagrancy happening outside of their stores.