One month later, nothing much has changed. Except that the humanitarian crisis then foreseen by advocates for the homeless has become a reality that ought to scar our consciences and lay to rest any claim we have to moral superiority, to the comfortable myth of Vermont as a better, more caring place.

It was on September 15 that a group of advocates gathered in the Statehouse to sound the alarm about the completely predictable unsheltering of close to 2,000 vulnerable Vermonters due to new limits on the GA emergency housing program. They gathered again on October 15 to sound the alarm yet again, as the unsheltering has proceeded apace and state leaders have refused to lift a finger to stop it.

“We are working frantically to keep people from dying,” said Julie Bond of Good Samaritan haven (pictured above, with former Brattleboro town manager Peter Elwell and Frank Knaack of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont looking on). “The situation is impossible, it is immoral, and it is untenable.”

The advocates repeated last month’s call for immediate action by Gov. Phil Scott: Declare an emergency and direct his officials to identify funding for an expanded GA program, and call the Legislature to a one-day special session to remove the limits placed on the program last spring.

Even as they issued their call, they seemed to expect little response. They spoke of rumblings that the administration is planning to set up large-scale congregate shelters, rumblings that were at least partially confirmed by a WCAX-TV report later in the day that the state was planning three “family shelters” Montpelier, Waterbury and WIlliston. It wasn’t immediately clear how big the shelters would be*, but they’d likely be roughly as inadequate as the ridiculous one-week shelters created last spring — shelters that were so awful, hardly anyone took advantage of the “opportunity” to sleep on a cot in a makeshift space with little to no bathroom, kitchen, electricity or refrigeration access.

*Update: WPTZ reports that the shelters will house 11 families. ELEVEN. You might as well just slap the rest of the unsheltered right in the face.

“Family shelters,” presumably because the thought of small children sleeping rough is just too much of a PR hit.

Advocates told story after story of people thrown out on the street with nowhere to turn. Brenda Siegel of End Homelessness Vermont spoke of being unable to reach a very high-risk client who’d been exited to an unknown fate. The unsheltered include pregnant women about to give birth or, in at least one case, a woman scheduled to be unsheltered last week two days after undergoing a Caesarian section. (The latter stories were recounted by Shelby LeBarron of End Homelessness Vermont, a former client of the GA program who was pregnant and gave birth while staying in a motel. She now helps people just like her, which must be both rewarding and triggering so soon after her own experience.)

People with severe disabilities or mental illnesses, people in wheelchairs, people who rely on medication that requires refrigeration or medical equipment powered by electricity, people with significant mobility issues, people who need assistance with personal care — all thrown out of state-paid motel rooms.

And as the advotes noted, this is not saving money. In fact, it’s more expensive to deal with the consequences of unsheltering than it does to provide motel rooms. But the costs are shifted from the state to local governments, medical facilities, helping agencies, libraries, etc.

The response of Our Political Betters, both executive and legislative, has been more about blame-shifting and damage control than about solving the problem or helping people in need. I share the advocates’ pessimism that anything will change because of another heart-tugging press conference across the hall from the governor’s empty ceremonial office and down the hall from the empty House and Senate chambers.

“There is no reality where it’s acceptable for nothing to be done,” Siegel said. With nighttime temperatures falling below freezing later this week, expect “something” to be done in the near future. Just don’t expect it to be pleasant or adequate or well-planned or competently executed or, well, humane. That kind of response would require our leaders to give a damn, and they quite obviously don’t.