I circled back to Gov. Phil Scott’s November 13 press conference because I was interested in the coverage of his comments about our burnt orange president-elect. VTDigger reported that Scott was urging people to give Donald Trump a chance:

“For the sake of our country, we need to tamp down the division and fear, and we need to at least give him the opportunity to do better and do the right thing.”

It sounded like the pundit class’ evergreen hopes that any minute now, Trump was about to start acting presidential. But when I listened to Scott’s full remarks, I got quite a different impression. Yes, he urged a wait-and-see attitude, but he was also sharply critical of Trump and rested his hopes more on “those who are coming into power with him” than on the president-elect himself. That’s a bold thing to do with a leader who has a proven capacity for vengeance. I thought it was more than a bit courageous on Scott’s part, actually.

Not so much with his comments on the newly-opened, grossly inadequate, and budget-bustin’ family shelters. On that score, he was deeply disingenuous — and the assembled reporters let him get away with it.

This was Scott’s first presser since VTDigger reported on the $3 million (or more) cost estimate for the family shelters in Williston and Waterbury, so naturally the subject came up in Question Time. Scott began his answer with a slam against the motel voucher program, “a failure” that was too costly and didn’t do anything to help clients achieve long-term stability. I don’t think anyone would disagree; the voucher program was never meant to be anything more than a stopgap.

However. The Scott administration has failed, for years, to devise an alternative or create a glidepath away from vouchers and toward a more robust, comprehensive policy.

He then kinda-sorta posited the family shelters as a “model” for a better approach to homelessness — without making the slightest commitment to broader implementation. Damn straight; the new shelters are far too costly to go beyond the “model” stage. They’re not a new avenue for addressing the problem; they’re a dead end that will, at best, help a handful of people.

But this is the kinder, gentler, Potemkin Village Phil Scott at his duplicitous worst.

We want to help them. We want to help them get to a point where they have housing themselves. We want to help them find employment if that’s a barrier. We want to help them with whatever issues they might have, whether it’s addiction or whatever the issue is, and help them succeed. And we couldn’t do that in the hotel-motel program because they were warehoused there, they wouldn’t have to let us in, we didn’t know what they were doing, what their problems were, we were just paying the bills. This way, we are able to connect with them.

Let’s unpack that little nugget, shall we?

It takes guts to claim that “We want to help them” when his administration just unsheltered about 1,400 vulnerable Vermonters and then slapped together a pair of new facilities that might accommodate, what, 40 of them? 50, maybe, at most? And a couple dozen children out of the 343 (the administration’s own figure) who’ve been unsheltered since mid-September? “We want to help,” my ass.

As for the rest of that sad paragraph, Scott would have us believe his own administration is an innocent bystander whose hands were tied. “They wouldn’t have to let us in”? What does that mean, exactly? Did you try? And if you thought the program was poorly designed, why in hell did you let it run on and on without seeking changes?

In fact, housing advocates will tell you the administration has consistently refused to engage with voucher clients and kept them in the dark. Because communication and intervention would have, yep, cost more money.

A reporter asked if Scott would be willing to create more shelters “if you see this program or this model work.” The answer was no, of course, but he ducked and dodged. “We’ll see” was the closest thing we got to a commitment.

In the process, he made reference to the Legislature’s appropriation of $10 million for emergency shelters, a pot of money he didn’t ask for, didn’t want, and is now frittering away. At least $3 million and probably more will be spent on these two shelters for 17 families, while 1,300-plus people go unsheltered.

And a reminder: The Legislature appropriated that money last spring. The administration didn’t come up with these family shelters until freakin’ OCTOBER. Does that sound like smart planning to you?

Scott hinted that the administration is willing to spend the full $10 million — on what, a few more of these “model” facilities? — but has been thwarted by a lack of community partners.

We want to set up something in Rutland. We have the space available, but we need someone to oversee it and they’re struggling with that as well.

“They’re struggling” is, I gather, a reference to private nonprofits that are already stressed to the max by Vermont’s homelessness crisis and Scott’s feeble response to it. They want to help, but they don’t have the capacity. That’s why the two existing facilities are costing an arm and a leg; the administration had to hire expensive out-of-state contractors to staff them.

It’s all of a piece with the grand tradition of Scott administration clusterfuckery on this issue. His comments are just another chapter in a sad story of blame-shifting and cold-blooded heartlessness. It ought to have triggered some tough questioning from the assembled reporters, but it didn’t. A few things they could have asked:

• Why didn’t the administration push for changes in the voucher program to allow for client interaction and support?
• Why didn’t the administration prepare any sort of exit strategy to ease the transition away from vouchers, when it’s been pushing for an end to the program for years?
• Since the Legislature appropriated the $10 million in shelter funding months ago, why did the administration wait until October — when the mass unsheltering of 1,400 people was well underway — to begin work on the family shelters?
• Is there a plan to upscale those shelters to accommodate all 1,400 vulnerable Vermonters? If so, how much would it cost and where will the money come from? If not, what are they supposed to do?
• If there’s no plan for all 1,400, is there a plan for the rest of the 343 unsheltered children and their parents?
• What about “Protecting the most vulnerable,” one of Scott’s alleged three core principles of governance?

They could have also inquired about admission standards for the family shelters. Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson and Department of Children and Families chief Chris Winters attended the presser remotely. Winters referred to the “intake” process; no one asked how many families had been through the process and how many (if any) were rejected, and if so, why.

Then again, he’s been getting away with this for years and, to judge by the election results, most of us don’t give a good goddamn, so why should the media and why should he?

As for myself, I’d like to think I live in a place that cares about its most vulnerable and provides a strong safety net for those who fall on hard times. But apparently I don’t.