On Wednesday afternoon, Patrick Dillon announced his candidacy for Longmont City Council. His campaign centers around providing support and resources for working-class families, increasing affordable housing, addressing homelessness, expanding access to mental health resources, and finding local solutions to economic inequality and community challenges.
Dillon, 32, grew up in the foster care system in southern Nevada before moving to northern Colorado in 2013. He moved to Longmont from Berthoud about two-and-a-half years ago. Dillon currently serves as Volunteer Coordinator at TGTHR, a nonprofit in Boulder focused on ending homelessness among youth. He has worked in the nonprofit sector since beginning his career, having held roles at Habitat for Humanity in Berthoud, Easterseals Colorado, and The Matthews House in Fort Collins.
“I think my lived and work experience provides me with a unique lens when addressing the issues and crises we are facing as a community,” Dillon said. “We have the solutions to the problems we face…. Considering current budget cuts at the federal and state levels, we need to step up locally and make investments where state and federal governments can no longer make them. I can have that conversation with our neighbors in a nuanced way — I can explain why we should invest in housing for all, affordable housing programs, and why we should tackle the mental health crisis in our community.”
Dillon said that poverty tends to “hide” in Longmont, and there are a lot of issues that working-class families face that they don’t necessarily know how to talk about or know how to access resources that can help them. “The services we provide are great when centralized in locations people can access, but we need to be out in the community more to ensure that no one is hungry and that they have access to housing resources,” he said. “I want to bring Longmont back into the community.”
Dillon also advocates for raising Longmont’s minimum wage and preparing the city for the potential loss of Medicaid benefits, which could ripple into job losses and further economic strain. He aims to create local resources to help mitigate these effects.
“Longmont’s unemployment rate is approaching five percent again, and we can expect that to increase with lack of state and federal funding,” Dillon said. “We have to act now to address these economic realities. When our neighbors struggle, it affects us too, directly or indirectly. I look forward to having a conversation with anyone about how we can do better for ourselves.”
Dillon is running for one of the two at-large seats that are open on the city council this November. Alex Kalkhofer and Jake Marsing have also announced their candidacies for these seats. The election will happen on November 4.
