The introduction historicizes the entanglement of both deepening poverty and a widely felt sense of boredom in postcommunist Romania. In the communist era, homelessness did not exist as an official social category as state guarantees assured a baseline subsistence. It was only after the fall of communism, during Romania’s troubled efforts at integrating into the global economy, that Romanians found themselves pushed out of work and housing and onto the streets. Those displaced by heightened market competition lost the ability to participate in a society that was increasingly organized around practices of consumption. Boredom abounded as the limitations of downward mobility ground against Romanian’s expectations of market-driven prosperity. The effects of the global financial crisis of 2008 brought these dynamics into clear relief.