After a decade of work with vulnerable populations, Cory Herzog-Fequet went back to school looking to help shine light on a structural issue.
“It’s very meaningful to work one-on-one with people, but…you just see the same issues over and over and over perpetuating indefinitely because they’re systemic and they’re structural,” he said. “I focused on something that I knew was an issue, but where there wasn’t a lot of information on, which is boredom.”
Herzog-Fequet’s thesis focused on the relationship between boredom and substance use for people experiencing homelessness. He’s also the corresponding author on a review on the same subject, appearing in the International Journal on Homelessness. He currently works with a community mental health agency in Kingston, On.
“Boredom is universal. Everybody’s experienced it. Everybody intuitively sort of knows what it is. But there is no universally agreed-upon definition,” he said.
Herzog Fequet says different authors have different definitions of boredom. He says his preferred definition has to do with a mismatch between people’s abilities and the things that are available in their environments.
“Essentially it’s a lack of meaning. It’s a lack of stimulation. It’s all of that sort of looped together, and it results in what we call an undirected response, which is essentially just looking for anything to alleviate the state of boredom.”
Herzog-Fequet says boredom and homelessness go hand in hand.
“A lot of studies identify boredom as the, quote, ‘central experience of homelessness,'” he said.
“Shelter environments in the literature, they’ve been described as very prison-like…they dictate when you can come, when you can go, the rules…I think another big one is just poverty too,” Herzog-Fequet says, adding that many of the ways middle class and affluent people have of alleviating boredom are not available to those experiencing homelessness.
Herzog-Fequet says that boredom can drive substance use.
“A lot of times when people are bored, you’re ruminating on past traumas, and for those that don’t know, people experiencing homelessness tend to have a lot of trauma,” he said. “You’re having these negative feelings, negative cognitions. Substances can help mitigate that in the short term.”
Herzog-Fequet says that to help reduce boredom for people experiencing or transitioning out of homelessness, its important to listen to people with first hand experience.
“ I think the service users actually have a really good idea of what they would find meaningful, what they’d like to do, and those [things] aren’t available,” he said. “ I hear a lot of lip service about meeting people where they’re at. I hear that term a lot, but I don’t see it done very well.”
Herzog-Fequet says he feels service providers are often having conversations with users about what would help, but that those conversations aren’t necessarily trickling upwards towards policymakers.
Listen to the full interview above for more.
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