This is a follow-up to my previous post on the Scott administration’s plan to exit 500 homeless Vermonters from state-paid motel rooms on Friday and into temporary congregate night-only shelters.

Which seems slightly less devious but even more absurd with the news that the governor signed the Budget Adjustment Act on Wednesday afternoon. My proposition that he’d delayed signing so he’d have a pretext for exiting all those people was inaccurate.

But the signing raises new questions. The biggest of which is, why in Hell did he wait so long? The bill passed the Legislature on March 1. I’m sure it took a few days to reach his desk, but the language had been agreed to. There was no need to sit on the bill. And since he did, his officials were left without firm direction on how to extend, or not, voucher accommodation for those being housed under the Adverse Weather Condition program. It meant, according to Commissioner Chris Winters of the Department of Children and Families, that state officials had little to no contact with AWC clients until Wednesday.

The only previous communication had been a letter warning clients that they might have to exit their motels on March 15. That’s all.

To summarize what we know: On Friday, the administration will open four congregate shelters (cots, no privacy, shared bathrooms, etc.), one each in Bennington, Berlin, Burlington and Rutland. The shelters will only operate for one week, more or less. They will be open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Daytimes? You’re on your own. Doors lock at 7 in the morning. Will there be any provision for storing personal possessions? Will there be any food service or food storage? Showers? Will there be any transportation options for the hours when the shelters are closed? Who knows.

Also, the shelters will be staffed by National Guard personnel with security provided by armed police officers.

Comfy cozy, right?

The majority of the 500 (precise figure unknown) would qualify for extended motel stays under the terms of the BAA, but many have not had their eligibility assessed because it wasn’t required for AWC. They include people with disabilities, the elderly, and families with children. This assessment can’t be done by Friday. But instead of extending the stays of all 500 while the assessment continues, they’re all just getting the boot.

And now that the BAA is signed, AWC clients who qualify for the GA housing program will be able to move back into motel rooms once their eligibility has been determined. Which makes their temporary displacement all the more ridiculous and unnecessarily cruel.

This shelter program will likely cost more money than simply extending everyone’s stay. We don’t know because Winters couldn’t put a price tag on the plan when he was testifying before a legislative committee Wednesday morning.

Administration officials also couldn’t, or didn’t, identify the precise locations of the four shelters. They must know, right? They’re gonna open these things in less than two days. They can’t still be finalizing real estate transactions, getting the necessary inspections and permits, and slapping together the necessary infrastructure.

They can’t. Or maybe they can. I wouldn’t put it past them.

I’ve heard from a city source that the Burlington shelter will be in a currently unoccupied state-owned office building at 108 Cherry Street. This place, per Google Maps:

This is the very building that the city of Burlington proposed using for a shelter last summer. The Scott administration rejected the plan. I guess they’ve changed their minds or, more likely, they’re just that desperate.

Where will the other three shelters be? Empty office buildings? Warehouses? Who knows.

This whole thing is an offense against good government and an insult to Phil Scott’s supposed principle of protecting the most vulnerable. His administration is about to shuffle 500 of our most vulnerable from motel rooms to congregate shelters, often located quite a distance away. Anyone currently housed in southeast Vermont will be sent to Bennington or Rutland, probably. If they have jobs or their kids are in school or they have ongoing health needs or ties to their community, well, tough luck.

In my 12-plus years following state government, I’ve seen carelessness and stupidity and short-sightedness aplenty. At the risk of recency bias, I feel quite secure in saying that this is the absolute worst.

I try to use profanity sparingly in this space, and I don’t know if I’ve ever used it in a headline before. But there’s a time and place, and this is it. “Clusterfuck” is the best way to describe this shambolic plan. And to call this a “plan” is awfully generous.