Mr. Lucas Belury

NeighborWorks America

Lucas Belury has a passion for building a sustainable and equitable world through strategic partnerships and an activist-centered geographic perspective. He teaches at national community development and affordable housing conferences and has published on the colonias of the Rio Grande Valley, environmental justice and informal survival practices. His research focuses on environmental racism, informality and economic precarity. In August 2020 Lucas completed his Master of Science in Geography from George Washington University- his thesis focused on the connection between environmental racism, predatory lending, and economic precarity in the colonias of the Rio Grande Valley. For the last 5+ years he has worked at NeighborWorks America, a national affordable housing and community development non-profit. Through this role, he uses data analytics and GIS to advance the community development and affordable housing efforts of diverse stakeholders. His philosophy is centering local knowledge by empowering communities through data democratization, bottom-up policy solutions, and knowledge sharing.