The federal government is providing more than $500,000 in funding to help launch Toronto’s first two safer supply programs as the city continues to grapple with an ongoing opioid overdose crisis.

The Emergency Safer Supply Program at Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre and the Downtown East Collaborative Safe Opioid Supply Program will receive $582,000 in funding from Ottawa over a 10-month period to provide those who use illicit substances in the city with pharmaceutical-grade medication that serves as a safe alternative to toxic street drugs.

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday morning, Coun. Joe Cressy, the chair of the Toronto Board of Health, said the program is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to preventing fatal opioid overdoses.

“In recent years in the city of Toronto, we've worked hard to tackle overdose deaths. Together harm reduction advocates, community partners, Toronto Public Health, we've worked to distribute naloxone, open supervised consumption sites, and expand treatment options,” he said.

“But we are fundamentally dealing with tainted drugs. It is an opioid poisoning crisis as much as it is an overdose crisis. That is why safe supply is so important.”

He noted that last month alone, Toronto recorded a staggering 27 suspected overdose deaths.

“It is the most we have ever recovered in a single month at Toronto Public Health and to put it in context, significantly more than the number of people in our city that died of COVID,” he said.

“Since the COVID pandemic began, the number of overdose deaths has been rising and accelerating.”

As an additional measure to help keep people at risk of an overdose safe during the pandemic, the federal government also granted the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Cenre federal exemption to operate a temporary overdose prevention site at the COVID-19 isolation shelter in Etobicoke.

In June, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa called on other levels of government to take “urgent action” to help combat the opioid crisis, which she said has “intensified” amid the pandemic.

In her report to the Toronto Board of Health, de Villa said the dual public health crises were having a “significant impact on people who use drugs” and noted that in the first four months of the year, emergency crews responded to 1,307 suspected opioid overdose calls, including 71 incidents involving deaths.

Jason Altenberg, the CEO of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, told reporters Thursday that while he welcomes the federal funding for the important programs, leaders are “late” in their response.

“Many of these deaths... could have been prevented by faster action and a response to a pandemic and a public health emergency that did not receive the attention it deserved as it emerged in our communities,” he said at Thursday's news conference.

“While I welcome this announcement, I also implore us to not allow these initiatives to wait so long and to ensure that they are not only scalable and sustainable, as… these programs are, but that we take politics out of the decision-making in our response to pandemics, that we use evidence, and that we use our commitment to our communities to drive our actions.”

Last month, the federal government along with provincial politicians in British Columbia announced $2 million in funding for the launch of a safer supply pilot project in the Cowichan Valley that would allow selected patients at risk of overdose to have access to hydromorphone tablets.