Happy Valentine’s Day from heART Space, where Mado, Cindy, and anyone else from the community experiencing grief are welcome to wander into on the first Thursday of every month for art and conversation, at the Downtown Community Centre. AVI educator and heART coordinator Shae Perkins says the once-busy and activity-filled DCC “saved my life when I was living homeless at 17 and 18,” though the space is rarely open now that pressure is on around reducing the visibility of the street crisis on Pandora. Shae started heART as a collective space for people to talk about grief, that very human experience that is particularly profound in the ongoing toxic drug crisis that has killed almost 19,000 people in BC in the last decade. “It can be really hard to find space for those emotions, and a place to be with your grief and connect with other people,” says Shae.