I have seen the future of homelessness in Sacramento. It’s called Portland

When I first moved to Sacramento, it was under very poignant circumstances.

My best friend, The Bee’s great cartoonist Rex Babin, had just died. I left Portland to start over in a new place after working at The Oregonian for 28 years. I left my kids behind as well. They were young adults in their late teens and early 20s.

Of course, I loved Portland. Everyone does. The city had become way more hip than me, but I wore the mantle of a quirky Portlander. I missed my fleece and my hiking shoes, most of which I rarely wear now.

Sacramento is rather similar to Portland in some ways, one of the corollary features being homelessness.

Homelessness is a moral and ethical failure of our society, and certainly it was a problem in Portland then. I had done many cartoons about it. But in 2013, homelessness was very much on the periphery of the destination resort Portland had become.

There were no tents in the Park Blocks, the tree-lined civic centerpiece of Portland’s downtown.

The homeless sequestered themselves in the nooks and crannies of any urban center, the overpasses, the fields, the shadows of the industrial/downtown interface. But not really anywhere near where the “Portlandia” characters, the beery tatted hipsters, the coffee shop denizens and the wealthy professionals who populated the West Hills, live.

So when I returned to Portland recently after 15 months of COVID sequestration, I was shocked by what I saw in the Rose City’s downtown core. Like Sacramento, it had been overrun by mental and economic despair.

As I drove through downtown, mentally ill people screamed into the wind, tents dotted central spaces, and there were very few people who looked like they wanted to be there.

Even with the window partially rolled down, I could smell human waste. I asked my son, is that what I think I smell? He had worked for Habitat for Humanity in Sacramento off and on for a year. He is truly a socially aware person, and he said, yeah. It’s bad now. Very bad.

In the historic Laurelhurst neighborhood, rows of tents were still there, even as many of the camps had been cleared. Imagine McKinley Park or Curtis Park as a giant homeless camp, and I mean all of it. Not in the corners. All of it.

The homeless were not in Portland’s margins. They were in its heart, and the political response to this tragedy seemed glacial to my eyes. Responding to homelessness has frozen Portland as it has many California cities.

By the numbers, Sacramento’s homeless population may be larger. But Portland’s homeless population seems more visible. The crisis is more abject, more pervasive and more present. People were living in wrecked RVs and cars in Delta Park, the lush north Portland site that houses sports fields and popular recreational spaces.

Makeshift kitchens sat outside under blue and green tarps. The softball fields, the parks, the public spaces which Portland had once viewed with such pride were now unrecognizable.

Most nights, a small group of anarchists roam the streets and randomly start fires and break windows. Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler, after over a year, has finally cracked down. Wheeler is now toxically unpopular, after a queasy electorate put him back in office in 2020.

I asked Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg what he thought about Portland. He hadn’t been there recently — who has been anywhere in this moment? — but he offered thoughtful words and a plan, which, if approved by the city council, could result in making what he called a “real dent” in our homeless problem. Steinberg is trying to cut through the inertia. He’s pushing for safe campgrounds where social workers can help the homeless where they are. Portland got to where it is now by waiting too long for permanent housing that never was built to the scale of the problem. Steinberg doesn’t want to wait.

He is a shrewd operator, and he’s on the right track.

I used to think “Portlandia” was a comedy. When I moved here, I thought it was a documentary.

There’s nothing comedic about Portland now. Let’s pray that Steinberg and the Sacramento City Council can help us avoid what happened there.

It’s a rerun no one will want to watch.

CORRECTION: This column has been updated to clarify that Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg has not been to Portland recently.

This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 6:00 AM.