This, my friends, is what the Scott administration thinks is an acceptable shelter space for dozens of our most vulnerable Vermonters. This is the Agency of Natural Resources Annex building, technically in Berlin but closer to Montpelier than anything. Starting tonight, if the administration has its way, this will be one of four nighttime-only temporary shelters meant to house a total of roughly 500 people being booted from their state-paid motel rooms. For no good reason. Bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, pitched in multisyllabic words intended to drain all the human emotion from the matter.

(Note: Vermont Legal Aid is going to court to try to block the mass exiting operation. I kind of doubt they’ll succeed; this plan is cruel, obnoxious and heartless, but it’s within the purview of state decision-making authority. But we can hope.

Otherwise, what are we looking at here?

I haven’t been inside the Annex, so I can’t witness to the quality of the decor. Probably not great; it’s been used for general storage by various state agencies, which have apparently been busily clearing out all the stuff that’s been sitting around. I can’t swear to the bathroom or shower facilities, although I have heard that the building contains two single-stall bathrooms. For dozens of people?)

Food service? Refrigeration? Privacy? Personal storage? Need we ask?

Did I mention it’s in the Winooski River flood plain and that it was flooded last summer?

Opens at 7:00 p.m. Closes for the day at 7:00 a.m. It’s about a half-hour walk from the Statehouse. (Bitter irony alert: It’s almost directly across the river from a tent encampment that’s been occupied by unhoused folk throughout the winter.) There is no bus service on this industrial roadway that probably gets more heavy-truck traffic than anything else. Perhaps some, or many, of the residents will find day shelter in the Statehouse’s welcoming cafeteria. They sure won’t gain access to the governor’s own offices in the closely-guarded, entry-by-pass-only Pavilion Building.

It seems inappropriate to continue referring to it as the Agency of Natural Resources Annex. I propose that, for the duration of its operation as a shelter, we call it Winters Hall in honor of Chris Winters, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families.

This idea will raise some hackles. Every time I write about Winters, I get feedback telling me he’s a really nice guy who’s doing his best to smooth out the sharp edges of administration policy. From my experience is is, in fact, a really nice guy. And I’ve heard that he has personal slash family reasons for needing the job.

I can understand. But still, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. He is the public face of an ever-changing and never-good administration policy and has been for about a year now. He is also the one who infamously told Carly Berlin of Vermont Public/VTDigger, “There’s going to be a cliff at some point.” Headstone material, that.

You know, there really doesn’t HAVE to be a cliff. Good public management would find a way to not push hundreds of people off Winters’ rhetorical precipice. “There’s going to be a cliff at some point” is not a grim inevitability. It’s a choice that people in the administration have made. The worse this gets, the less capacity I have to feel sorry for Chris Winters. Isn’t there a nice nonprofit that needs an experienced executive?

They don’t have to do this. They have choices. One is to simply extend people’s motel stays while their eligibility to continue in the program can be determined. That may well be cheaper than this horrific temporary shelter “plan,” which Winters can’t even give a cost estimate for. It’s believed that most, and perhaps a sizeable majority of the 500, would quality for vouchers due to age or disability or other criteria. But they haven’t been evaluated. It’s more sensible, it’s more humane, and it might even be cheaper to let them continue in their current arrangements with their possessions and proximity to jobs, schools, health care and other services, until their eligibility can be sorted out. Most of them will be able to stay put, after all.

Hell, I’ve written this before. But it’s hard to stop repeating it. Hard to not scream it from a rooftop. Hopefully a sturdier rooftop than the one at 190 Junction Road.

I’ve already posted a picture of the proposed Burlington shelter at 108 Cherry Street in the heart of downtown, hard by the finally-being-developed Pit and the temporary location of Burlington High School. We could call that one Samuelson Acres after Human Services Secretary and Ace Spouter of Bureaucratic Newspeak Jenney Samuelson.

I take you now to the heart of another downtown, this time in Rutland, where the proposed shelter is at 88 Merchants Row, within sight of the Walmart and a few doors down from the Wonderfeet Kids’ Museum. Hey, that’d be a place for unhoused children to hang out when the shelter is closed for the day.

Let’s call that one Gray Gardens, in honor of the classic documentary film “Grey Gardens” (about two reclusive women, a mother and daughter, who lived in poverty at Grey Gardens, a derelict mansion in New York City) and also Miranda Gray, Deputy Commissioner of DCF’s Economic Services Division and frequent explainer of appalling shelter policy.

The fourth shelter was set to be located in Bennington, but according to the Bennington Banner those plans have changed and the state is now looking for a site in Brattleboro.

Do I need to say how absurd this is? They don’t have a site, they just changed from one city to another on the opposite side of the state, and they plan to open a shelter for dozens of people less than 24 hours from now.

The Banner reports that local officials are at sea, and practically up in arms, over the lack of coordination or communication from state officials. Shocking, I know. Bennington Select Board chair Jeannie Jenkins told the Banner ““It’s stunning. It’s disrespectful, not just to the towns but the people living in motels.”

The shift to Brattleboro happened late Thursday afternoon, per the Brattleboro Reformer, which ran a slightly Bratt-centric version of its sister paper’s account, reporting that town officials were not prepared. At all.

Brattleboro Town Manager John Potter declined to comment on his community being selected to house one of the four regional shelters, referring calls to an Agency of Human Services staffer. That state office said no one was available to comment on Thursday.

Last time I addressed this plan I called it a “clusterfuck.” We seem to be traveling far beyond that territory.

It’s hard to assign a name to the Brattleboro shelter, since we don’t even know where it will be. But we’ve gotta rope the governor in on this, so I’m provisionally going to call it Scottland. Let’s spin the real estate wheel, boys and girls, and see where this shelter might magically appear in a mere matter of hours.

Welcome to Scottland, you tired, you poor, you huddled masses yearning for a roof over your heads. Wherever it is.

At this point the governor may be secretly hoping Vermont Legal Aid wins its case. He’s gone down this path before, setting out an inhumane policy, letting the Legislature do the dirty work of creating an alternative, and grudgingly agreeing to it. A court ruling against him would sure solve a lot of problems for a lot of his people. And for the four communities where these hastily-arranged and ill-considered shelters would be located. And for the 500-odd people who are being treated like puzzle pieces instead of human beings.

I think about attending the court hearing and just starting to shout “Shame, Shame, Shame” whenever someone from the administration rises to speak. (Hey, maybe our Democratic Attorney General will get the job of defending this mess. She is the lawyer for the state of Vermont, after all. That’d be a nice stain on her resumé.) My years as a journalist would probably overrule that impulse, but a guy can dream.