Whad’ya know. The Scott administration set up four crappy homeless shelters in a two-day period of time last week. The four were meant to fit up to 500 people, if they crammed in real tight. (Click here and scroll down to see a photo of the Burlington shelter, which at least was in a relatively modern building. Just imagine what the inside of the Berlin shelter, pictured above, looks like.)

Well, I’ve received what are apparently official figures from an unofficial source, and they indicate that the four shelters housed a grand total of 10 people on Saturday night.

Ten.

That’s seven in Burlington, two in Rutland, one in the Berlin shelter (a.k.a. Winters Hall), and a big fat zero in the southeast Vermont shelter, located in a disused office building formerly occupied by Entergy Nuclear.

The staff-to-occupant ratio is something out of the fever dreams of an upper-class private school. According to the information I’ve been given, each shelter had four EMS staff, three National Guard staff, an unknown number of security officers, plus a presence from MRC, which I think stands for Medical Reserve Corps. (It’s probably not the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, the Merchant Risk Council, or Midhurst Rother College.)

In addition, each location was attended by local service agencies such as COTS and CVOEO in Burlington, Good Smaritan haven and Capstone at Berlin, Rutland Mental Health and BROC in Rutland, and Pathways and HCRS in the southeast. As if those people didn’t have enough to do, what with the Scott administration’s manufactured crisis.

And I’m sure their last several days have been absolute hell, what with the administration’s precipitate decision last Wednesday to unhouse, effective Friday, nearly 500 people who’ve been housed in state-paid motel rooms under the Adverse Weather Program.

As it turned out, homeless-assistance organizations like End Homelessness Now helped about 130 of those 500 continue to stay in their motel rooms. The rest? Kicked out Friday morning. Some apparently were not even informed that there were temporary shelters available, continuing the administration’s shambolic tradition of treating the homeless as if they were puzzle pieces.

The ultra-low turnout will probably be taken as a win by the administration because, hey, all those people must have found better housing elsewhere, right?

Based on the admin’s track record, I’m guessing they have no idea where all those folks went. Out of sight, out of mind.

But still. Just because some of them found some kind of housing, or slept outside, or whatever, doesn’t mean the administration’s decision to pull the plug on AWC was any wiser or less inhumane. Those 500 were needlessly plunged into panic. Nearly 400 had to suddenly leave the places where they were staying. I’m sure many had to abandon their possessions, which is a cruel thing to do to people who are already living on the edge.

Of course, “cruel” seems to be the administration’s default setting. Or if you want to be kind to them, I’d accept “thoughtless.” They don’t seem to see these people as, well, people. They sure don’t treat ’em that way.

The pitifully tiny turnout at the shelters also underscores two problems with the administration’s sudden decision: Many were uninformed about the shelter option, and the shelters totally sucked. They are only open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., amenities like showers and personal storage are either scant or nonexistent, and at least two of the shelters are very hard to get to without a car.

(I drove by the Berlin shelter at about 6:00 p.m. Friday. There was a school bus idling out front. I guess it was there to transport people to the shelter. But I don’t know how it was going to find those people, who’d been forced out of their motels seven hours earlier and presumably scattered to wherever they could find a bit of warmth.)

Almost forgot: the shelters are a colossal waste of money and resources. We still don’t know how much the state has paid for these things. The helping agencies are footing the bill for their presence, I’m sure, or their dedicated staff are just putting in some unpaid overtime.

The whole thing remains a disgrace. In many ways, the low usage makes it even worse.