Automotive metaphors are always a temptation when writing about the man behind the wheel of #14, Gov. Phil Scott, but sometimes you gotta go with it. Now, the governor doesn’t look like a used car salesman when he’s holding court in his ceremonial office. He can sound convincing when he tells you about this sweet little number, low mileage, owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sunday. You’ll look great behind the wheel of this baby!

But if you drive it off the lot, pretty soon it’s leaking fluids and making funny sounds and belching smoke out the tailpipe.

Which brings us to, you guessed it, the governor’s shambolic temporary shelter “plan.” He calls it “a successful mission” and gives himself top marks: “I think we did a good job.” His sales associate, Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson, is effusive about how her people were all over the state, keeping in close contact with those about to lose their motel rooms, “actively communicating, going door to door last week,” and being “really flexible” about helping folks fill out the necessary waivers to achieve eligibility for continued motel vouchers.

Get into the real world, though, and this thing starts looking like a complete lemon.

Start with the fact that anyone who works with the unhoused will tell you that Samuelson is vastly overstating her agency’s effort and competence. Helping agencies and housing advocates say that many voucher clients were in the dark about the looming end of their eligibility, the process for seeking continued eligibility, and even the existence of the governor’s awful shelters. Hell, last Thursday, one administration official was talking about mailing notices to voucher clients.

Think about that. They’re due to be exited on Friday. The notices were going in the mail on Thursday. What the hell is that supposed to accomplish?

We now know the shelter program is far more costly than the voucher program. Per VTDigger/Vermont Public’s Carly Berlin, the governor’s four crappy shelters cost $50,000 per night to operate. By her reckoning, it would have cost less than $37,000 per night to pay for vouchers for the 458 households that were scheduled to see their stays end last Friday.

Okay, but see, she’s actually being generous to the administration.

According to the Department of Children and Families, 169 households comprising 184 individuals have qualified for extended motel stays thanks to an expanded disability definition included in the Budget Adjustment Act. That’s close to 40% of the 458 households. Under the BAA, those people should never have been exited from state-paid motel rooms. They shouldn’t be counted toward the shelter/voucher cost comparison because they should never have lost their vouchers.

So, 458 minus 169 gives us 289. Multiply that number by the $80 per night maximum voucher value and you get… $23,120.

Great. Scott’s lousy shelters cost more than twice as much as it would have cost to just keep those 289 households in motels.

Oh, but hang on to your hat. It gets worse.

The advocacy organization End Homelessness Vermont has been surveying those 458 exited households as well as helping them fill out paperwork. EHV has found that at least 75% of those households, and possibly many more, should qualify for motel rooms.

Which begs the question, why have less than half that number managed to qualify?

First, the rushed process left little time to fill out paperwork and get a health care provider’s signature. Second, many people exited to unknown destinations and they’re not easy to find. EHV and other organizations have all they can do to help the people who have come forward, much less go searching for the rest. Third, it’s still early days and some forms are in the pipeline.

The administration has madequalifying for vouchers more difficult to qualify than it needs to be. No time, little communication, onerous requirements, everything but actual hoops you need to jump through. I’d say they’re trying to save money except that, as we’ve already established, they’re not.

Add it all up and you have an administration that (a) clearly flouted the will of the Legislature as expressed in a bill the governor signed, (b) caused massive disruption for hundreds of vulnerable Vermonters for no good reason, and (c) spent a lot of extra money in order to do so.

This is the governor’s idea of a success.

There’s more. Per the Rutland Herald, the administration failed to get the required permits for using the Asa Bloomer building as a makeshift shelter. And according to Cary Berlin’s latest, the administration has backed off its determination to close the temporary shelters on schedule, um, tonight, with a winter storm watch in effect, because the Burlington shelter is now getting a fair bit of use and Mayor Miro Weinberger has urged the administration to keep it open.

And here’s the topper. By the time you read this, the administration may have been forced to reopen the motel program to all 458 households. Vermont Legal Aid has sued the administration for failing to implement the terms of the BAA. There was a hearing in the case on Thursday (yesterday, as I write this) and the judge is expected to issue a ruling today.

That’s right, the used car salesman might have to take back his rustbucket and issue a full refund. I don’t know how much more “success” we can take.