We already knew that the Scott administration’s pathetically inadequate family shelters were a Potemkin village meant to project the image of concern without making any effort to address the scope of the homelessness crisis.

And now we know, thanks to VTDigger, that this sham effort is also a colossal waste of resources.

The shelters, which can house up to 17 families for up to five months, will cost at least $3 million. The bulk of that money, some $2.6 million, will go to an out-of-state contractor that will provide staffing for the shelters because, well, local service agencies are already stretched to the max.

You may recall that the motel voucher program, deemed too costly to continue intact by Gov. Phil Scott and the Democratic caucuses in the Legislature, had a maximum cost of $80 per motel room per night. If you divide $80 into $3 million, you’ll see that the money spent on these family shelters — really, spent almost entirely on well-compensated staffers from a for-profit company — could have paid for 37,500 nights of motel shelter.

Can you say “boondoggle,” friends? I know you can.

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