The 2024 Habitat House Party

Speaker Adrienne Adams

District 28

Adrienne Eadie Adams is the Speaker of the New York City Council. Elected in January 2022 by her colleagues, she leads the most diverse and the first women-majority Council in New York City history as the first-ever African American Speaker. Elected to the City Council in November 2017, she is also the first woman to represent District 28, which encompasses the Queens neighborhoods of Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Rochdale Village, and South Ozone Park.

Under the leadership of Speaker Adams, the Council has been tackling long-standing inequities. She led the lawmaking body to advance women’s health by passing legislative packages to address persistent racial disparities in maternal health and expand access to abortion and reproductive healthcare. The Council, under Speaker Adams’ leadership, also directed the largest amount of municipal funding of any city in the nation to support direct access to abortion healthcare for those without an ability to pay.

Speaker Adams has expanded support for crime victims in communities that experience high levels of violence but are underserved by traditional victim services. She created a new $5.1 million budget initiative to fund community safety and victim services at the neighborhood level, and secured funding to establish New York State’s first four Trauma Recovery Centers.

Speaker Adams and the Council prioritized addressing inequities in the city’s workforce, passing legislative packages to confront the historic lack of diversity in the FDNY and gender- and race- based pay disparities that impact municipal workers. Speaker Adams also helped establish the CUNY Reconnect program that has helped thousands of working-age New Yorkers to return to college in pursuit of a degree after leaving school.

Speaker Adams’ leadership has set a new tone for the Council’s leadership in addressing the City’s housing crisis. Under her leadership, the Council approved over 40 land use projects in 2022, which will produce more than 12,000 units of housing, over 63% of which are affordable. Adams also put forward an aggressive Housing Agenda with a Fair Housing Framework to increase the equitable production of affordable housing development across the City, while prioritizing deeper affordability, housing preservation, and homeownership.

During her first term in the Council, Speaker Adams secured a record level of funding for her district, which had endured years of disparity and disinvestment, including investments in schools, parks, libraries, housing, and sanitation services. As a member of the Budget Negotiating Team, she championed funding for cultural institutions, health care, digital access, child and adult literacy, community-based food pantries, small business assistance, as well as Fair Futures, an initiative providing mentorship and services for foster care youth. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she fought to secure additional testing and vaccine sites in her district, which lacked equitable resources despite having one of the highest COVID-19 case rates in the entire City. While serving as Co-Chair of the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus (BLAC) of the Council, Speaker Adams advocated for additional investments in foreclosure prevention programs, CUNY’s research institutions, and many other community support initiatives. Under her leadership, the City Council also funded the Education Equity Action Plan, an initiative to implement a comprehensive K-12 Black Studies Curriculum for all students in New York City’s public schools.

As Chair of the Committee on Public Safety, Speaker Adams shepherded passage of critical reform legislation to improve police accountability and transparency. These included bills to end qualified immunity (making New York City the first city in the nation to enact such a law); require NYPD to document and report on vehicle stops with demographic breakdowns (race, gender, etc.); and empower the Civilian Complaint Review Board to initiate investigations into police misconduct. During her tenure as Chair of the Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitings, and Dispositions, she played a key role in advancing the plan to close Rikers Island.

Speaker Adams also passed legislation to reform the City’s tax lien sale to protect homeowners, extend protections for fast food workers, require transparency on the Administration for Children’s Services’ emergency removals of children, and return unused commissary funds to formerly incarcerated New Yorkers.

Speaker Adams was raised in Hollis, Queens, as the daughter of two proud union workers. She attended St. Pascal Baylon Elementary School and Bayside High School. After briefly studying at CUNY’s York College, she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, minoring in Early Childhood Development. Prior to serving in the City Council, Speaker Adams worked professionally as a Corporate Trainer at several Fortune 500 companies, specializing in Executive Training, Telecommunications Management, and Human Capital Management, and worked as a Childhood Development Associate Instructor, training child care professionals to obtain their Child Development Associate credentials in accordance with the standards set by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Speaker Adams first entered public service as a member of Queens Community Board 12, the second largest community board in the borough. She was appointed Chair of the Education Committee, advocating for education equity and opposing school closures and co-locations. In recognition of her leadership, Speaker Adams was elected to three consecutive terms as Chair of Community Board 12, serving from December 2012 to November 2017. She advocated for improved delivery of services, economic opportunities, and better quality of life in Southeast Queens.

As a community advocate, Speaker Adams served in leadership positions for community-based organizations and advisory committees. She was appointed by then Queens Borough President Melinda Katz to the Queens Public Library Board of Trustees, overseeing a 62-branch institution that maintained the highest circulation of any municipal library system in the country.

Additionally, she was appointed to the Local Planning Committee for the Jamaica Downtown Revitalization Initiative and served as Co-Chair of the Jamaica NOW Leadership Council. In these roles, Speaker Adams guided more than $150 million in funding and investments for workforce and business development, education, health and wellness, housing, and transportation for the Downtown Jamaica area.

Speaker Adams is an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, the first sorority for Black college-educated women. She is also a longstanding member of the NAACP and the National Action Network.

Speaker Adams is a wife, mother, and grandmother (“cool Nona”) within her beloved blended family.

Ron D. Franklin

Partner, Proskauer
Board Member, Habitat NYC and Westchester

Ron D. Franklin is co-head of the Firm’s Corporate Finance Group and leads the Firm’s Fund Finance practice.  He advises clients across a broad spectrum of finance issues, including secured and unsecured lending transactions, domestic and cross-border acquisition financings, all types of fund financings, project financings, workouts, restructurings and general banking concerns. He also counsels corporate clients regarding stock and asset acquisitions, contract negotiations, and general corporate matters. 

Prior to joining Proskauer, Ron worked with another prominent law firm located in New York.

Cesarina Fabián

National Director,
Habitat for Humanity Dominican Republic

Cesarina Fabián has been the National Director of Habitat for Humanity Dominican Republic since 2008, with vast experience in themes related to economic development and human development.

A great part of Cesarina’s life has been dedicated to social impact work. In 2005, she worked for the Office for the Christian Community and Executive Power for the Office of the Presidency in the Dominican Republic.

Cesarina held the presidency as Habitat’s representative for two terms on Alianza ONG (the largest conglomerate of private non-profits in the Dominican Republic). She is a member of Vision Fund’s board of directors and member of the assembly of the Dialogue Table and Christian Representation in the Dominican Republic, and currently sits on the board of directors of La Merced,  Aldeas and AFS Intercultura.

At the academic level, Cesarina graduated as an Economist from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) and also has a degree in Clinical Psychology. She is married and has two adult boys and two grandchildren.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company is a leading financial services company that has approximately $1.9 trillion in assets. We provide a diversified set of banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through our four reportable operating segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth & Investment Management. Wells Fargo ranked No. 47 on Fortune’s 2023 rankings of America’s largest corporations. In the communities we serve, the company focuses its social impact on building a sustainable, inclusive future for all by supporting housing affordability, small business growth, financial health, and a low-carbon economy. News, insights, and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.