Running in one of several races in the region with no opposition, Easthampton’s city council president is poised to win an upcoming state House race and make the move to Beacon Hill.
For the past few months, dozens of signs with Homar Gomez’s name have been popping up on properties across the city.
Running as a Democrat, the council president’s been getting his name out since the start of the year, when he announced plans to run for the 2nd Hampshire House seat.
It’s being vacated by Representative Daniel Carey – another Easthampton city council alum who’s been in office since 2019, but is now seeking the Hampshire County Clerk of Courts role.
With no real competition ahead and a state primary that saw only his name on the Democratic ballot, Gomez tells WAMC his campaign has been smooth so far.
“The campaign is doing good. Why it’s doing good is because the four communities are being welcoming to me – they’re receiving me with open arms, and I appreciate that,” he said. “People are willing to listen to me, to listen to my ideas, and because of that, I having a great time.”
Those four communities include Gomez’s own Easthampton, and then another three across the Connecticut River – Hadley, South Hadley, and about half of Granby.
Gomez has been making the rounds throughout the area, and collected almost 4,900 votes in September’s primary – about 1,100 fewer than Carey during his own unopposed 2022 primary.
Born in Puerto Rico, Gomez and his family moved to the Northeast, eventually living in Easthampton in 2007, according to his campaign site. About a decade later, he ran for city council.
He’d also been working at a local funeral home where he’s now assistant director and by 2022, he was leading the city council, where priorities have ranged from making for a greener city to focusing on housing.
An ongoing issue, Easthampton’s been grappling with keeping living there affordable - so much so that Gomez says one of his daughters ended up moving to nearby Holyoke.
“We have two brand new schools, and the numbers are going down - we need kids in our community,” he said. “We need families to come to our community, including single people, like my daughter. I wish she can come back to Easthampton - I mean, Holyoke is not really far away, but always having them close to me, is good. I think we're being proactive. We recognize that the needs are there, we recognize that we need affordable housing.”
Elsewhere in the district, he says, issues put before him by voters on the other side of the river have his attention as well. His platform is focused on infrastructure in general, including maintaining rural roads. That, and tackling tax rates.
“I’ve been talking to a lot of people, and they're concerned - they're concerned that the tax rates are going high,” Gomez said. “It's a possibility that some people can lose their houses because they live on a fixed income and the government has to do a little better to keep them in their homes.”
Ultimately, Gomez tells WAMC, his own experiences growing up in poverty, living in public housing and making use of food stamps in the past are informing his advocacy.
Having come out on the other side of poverty, he says that, and other factors leave him wanting to advocate for those in need, all while taking that perspective to Boston.
“We made it – we made it through the system. I will say, I'm proud I got food stamps when I needed it, and we get out of food stamps when we get jobs and we do better, right? The programs are there … were [were on] that side, and it's important for people in Boston to know that too. They need that voice … to explain how we did better and I want to be that voice.”
