You’d think the head of the biggest and most complicated agency in state government would have quite enough on her plate without dipping her toe into housing policy. But somehow, Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson found time in her busy schedule to co-write an opinion column — you know, those things nobody reads? — that addresses our housing crisis without ever mentioning our ongoing humanitarian disaster of unsheltered homelessness.

Samuelson co-wrote the piece with Commerce Secretary Lindsay Kurrle, whose job description actually includes housing supply issues. I’ve got no problem with Kurrle promoting the Scott administration’s housing push. But Samuelson? Coming from her, the piece comes across as dishonest and disengenuous.

The biggest howler comes right near the top, where the two secretaries boast that “we’ve been successful in transitioning an unprecedented number of Vermonters out of homelessness” this year.

Great, congratulations. What they don’t mention, of course, is that the unprecedented need for shelter was triggered by THE SCOTT ADMINISTRATION’S INSISTENCE ON ENDING THE MOTEL VOUCHER PROGRAM.

Nope, not a word of that. Shameless.

The immediate task facing Samuelson’s agency is cobbling together about 1,500 new shelter beds by April, when what’s left of the voucher program is set to expire. But you wouldn’t know that from reading this essay, because Kurrle and Samuelson don’t even mention that inconvenient fact.

Instead, we get a retelling of the administration’s dire warnings from the November meeting of the legislative Joint Fiscal Committee, in which four top officials called for an all-out effort to boost Vermont’s housing supply — including land-use deregulation, changes in tax policy to encourage construction, and the administration’s One Neat Trick, incentive programs.

Kurrle and Samuelson don’t call for any additional public investment because, in their words, “we cannot buy our way out of this housing deficit.” Well, sure. But it sure ought to be part of the solution, especially when it comes to low-income and transitional housing.

The essay closes with a warning that “We can’t keep kicking the can down the road,” which is kind of rich from the folks who’ve been in charge of state government for the last seven years. They’ve been kicking just as hard as anyone else. Except when it comes to homelessness, when they’d prefer to simply ignore the can sitting inconveniently at their feet. Kicking it would only call attention to it, after all.

That seems to suit legislative leaders just fine. Every month since the summer, a significant portion of each Joint Fiscal Committee meeting has been devoted to the transition away from the voucher program. They’ve received the required monthly progress report from the administration and asked questions.

But not this month. The JFC’s December meeting is scheduled for this (Friday) afternoon. The meeting will be a short one, and there’s nothing on the agenda about housing or homelessness. I guess they’re tired of hearing bad news.

Which is understandable because there’s so much of it. The administration’s latest monthly report is downloadable from the JFC’s webpage, and it’s another dreary recitation of failure. As of late October, there were 815 households remaining in the voucher program. Well, by late November, that number dropped to 740, continuing the pattern of painfully slow decline. A total of 549 households have “transitioned out of the program” since July 1 — but less than half of them, a mere 192 in all, are known to have found alternative housing.

And that’s with a dedicated effort by state officials to cut the program as fast as possible and make it as inconvenient as possible for clients to navigate various obstacles.

So what happened to the other 357 households? The vast majority, 259 in all, are listed as “left or did not renew without notifying State of plan.”

In other words, as I noted last time, the state is a lot better at losing track of needy Vermonters than actually helping them.

So we won’t get any pointed questioning of state officials at the JFC meeting. Nor will we get an update on the administration’s frantic efforts to create massive quantities of shelter space before April 1, which is now only five months away.

Yeah, I see how that might be too much of a bummer to contemplate on a Friday afternoon. Not as much of a bummer as having to sleep outside in the cold, as many vulnerable Vermonters are doing these days. But I guess that’s their problem.