Casius H. Pealer, III, is an attorney and Senior Professor of Practice at Tulane University, where he directed the graduate and undergraduate programs in real estate development for ten years.
Casius is an affordable housing advocate, dedicated to strong neighborhoods and a livable city for New Orleanians of all ages.
Casius first came to New Orleans in 1991 from Ocala, FL, to study Architecture at Tulane University, where he earned B.Arch and M.Arch degrees. After graduation he worked as a carpenter, drove a United taxi cab (#118), and then joined the U.S. Peace Corps where he taught small business skills to local artists and craftspeople in the West Indies.
Upon returning to the United States, Casius completed a law degree at the University of Michigan, working in the school’s unique housing development clinic in Detroit. He is licensed to practice law in New York State and Washington, DC, where he worked for a law firm specializing in affordable housing and infrastructure development before moving to the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) as Assistant General Counsel for Real Estate. In those roles, Casius was lead or associate counsel for public agencies financing over $360 million of public and affordable housing projects in communities across the country.
While in DC, Casius taught night classes at Howard University's College of Engineering and Architecture. He is passionate about helping young people expand their knowledge and build self-confidence, and he sought to continue teaching as an adjunct professor at Tulane on returning to New Orleans in 2010.
Casius’s local volunteer work includes serving as president and commissioner of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) and on the Steering Committee for Rebuilding Together New Orleans. He has also served nationally as chair of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Housing Committee and as the first Director of Affordable Housing for the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Since 2017, he has been a board member and vice chair for Next City, a nonprofit journalism organization that centers marginalized voices while amplifying solutions for just and equitable cities.
Casius and his wife, Libra LaGrone Pealer, have two daughters (ages 7 and 9), and the four of them live in the St. Roch neighborhood where you can often find them walking a fuzzy brown dog on the neutral ground.
