Well, in this context, “incompetence” is the charitable interpretation. The alternative is that the responsible Scott administration officials are deliberately biffing the emergency housing effort and obfuscating slash lying to try to cover it up. Fortunately, they’re pretty bad at obfuscation, too.

Actually, there’s a third thesis, and my money’s on this one: The administration has so thoroughly starved AHS of needed resources that its staff can’t possibly handle the workload, and its leadership is tap dancing around the inconvenient truth.

Let’s go back to last week’s appalling performance before the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee, where AHS leaders presented their first mandatory report on the disposition of motel voucher recipients. For those just joining us, the last-minute budget compromise reached in late June continued the voucher program for most recipients, set some stringent conditions for those receiving vouchers, and mandated that AHS report once a month on progress toward ending the program and providing alternative housing for all recipients.

The report was an embarrassment, starting with a rundown of the 174 recipients who left the program in July. Of those 174, a mere 34 had found apartments to live in. (There was no breakdown on how many were helped by AHS in finding new housing and how many managed the trick on their own.) That’s less than 20% of those no longer in motels. The vast majority — 113 in all, a staggering 65% — left the program for destinations unknown because they had failed to renew their benefits, a process that appears to be devilishly difficult.

AHS Secretary Jenney Samuelson told the committee that “we had not been able to make contact with” those 113 despite multifaceted efforts. But a very different story was told by advocates for the unhoused.

Rick DeAngelis of Good Samaritan Haven told VTDigger that “it’s almost impossible to figure out how to get recertified,” and that’s why many have exited the program, not because they have found suitable housing.

“I help these folks when they can’t get through & time & again they are exited due to no voucher because they COULD NOT get through to the state or did & [the state] didn’t send the voucher,” housing advocate and former gubernatorial candidate Brenda Siegel wrote on Twitter. She told VTDigger that people with disabilities, who would seem to be among “the most vulnerable” that Gov. Phil Scott insists he are his priority, are having an especially tough time getting through.

Oh, and in case you had a shred of thought that this process is at all humane, Siegel also shared the story of a woman who’s disabled and 90% blind and was “exited” from the program. Just makes it all the more maddening to listen to Samuelson blithely explain how diligently her agency tried to contact all the voucher clients.

But wait, there’s more. And worse.

As part of the program, the state had paid security deposits for voucher clients. The money went to motel operators, but was supposed to be given to clients if they left motel rooms undamaged.

And the Scott administration did absolutely jack shit to enforce that provision.

According to the AHS slideshow, more than $5 million in security deposits should have been given to exiting clients on or before March 31, but Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth pointed out…

The slide says “All deposits should have been returned to clients with no room damages when they exited or by March 31. The State does not have data on what was returned vs. held due to damages.” So that $5 million should have been returned, but we have no idea how much was?

Samuelson explained that it was “a relationship between clients and motels.”

“But it was state money,” Baruth replied. “Why can’t the state require that motel owners report that data?”

This seemed to spark confusion among the administration witnesses, which ended when Deputy Secretary of Administration (and newly-minted chief of the governor’s flood recovery effort) Doug Farnham approached the committee and delivered something of a filibuster.

The state didn’t have a formal role, a legal role, in the relationship between the renter. So we were paying the security deposit on behalf of the renter, but that didn’t give us any legal rights to impose any conditions. The feds actually said you cannot impose any additional conditions on landlords beyond some eviction prevention measures that they allowed. So the state had very limited capability within the federal restrictions on the program.

In case that left you scratching your head, Samuelson helpfully summarized, “We could not legally require the hotels to report.” And when Baruth commented on the “craziness” of not having the power to track the disposition of taxpayer money, Samuelson replied, “I can understand your being confounded by the federal regulations… We did look into this several times, and we were not able to legally require the hotels to report this stuff.”

Okay, well, crazy, but I guess it’s the feds’ fault?

Not so fast, my friend. VTDigger’s Lola Duffort contacted the U.S. Treasury, which told her that there were no such restrictions. A follow-up inquiry with AHS spokesperson Rachel Feldman produced a revised explanation — which also failed to pass muster with the Treasury.

Jesus Christ on a bicycle, what are we doing here? Lying to a legislative committee? Or administering a multi-million-dollar program on faulty assumptions?

This is the same Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight that mismanaged the voucher program for three years, repeatedly failed to plan any transition out of a program intended to be temporary, failed to clearly communicate with voucher clients who were being exited this spring, and is now bungling the transition. And managing to find housing for no more than a tiny minority of voucher clients.

Oh, and getting absolutely nowhere fast on its Request for Proposals for emergency housing and services. The RFP, issued only days before the voucher program was scheduled enter its phase-out — and before the last-minute deal that partially extended it — attracted 59 Letters of Interest by its June 11 deadline.

As of the AHS’ report to Joint Fiscal, delivered two months after the deadline, none of those proposals have been approved. But hey, they did identify 31 worth pursuing. And they have a grand total of two contracts in development. Two!

They’ve got a funny way of defining “emergency,” don’t they?

Gotta say, I’m looking forward to future monthly reports as a likely source of sarcastic commentary. The agency’s first report provided a lot of statistics, but no evidence that it has the capability or intentionality to successfully manage the end of the voucher program.

Just as a reminder, there is no defined source of funding for the voucher extension. And, well, with the July 10 floods and all, there are likely to be many urgent demands on any available surplus money. Also, this program is supposed to wrap up, with all clients being transitioned to other types of housing, by next spring.

Do you have any confidence the administration can pull this off? I sure as hell don’t.