The new Minister of Housing, Habitat and Buildings, appointed in Decree 554-26, replacing Víctor Orlando “Ito” Bisonó Haza, formed his first political movement at the age of 17 and comes from a family with two previous generations in the management of state infrastructure
SANTO DOMINGO. – Jean Luis Rodríguez assumes the Ministry of Housing, Habitat and Buildings (Mivhed) at just 38 years old and with a surname that already carries weight in the Dominican public administration, before he was even born.
Born in Santo Domingo in 1988, Rodríguez is the son of engineer Roberto Rodríguez and Marisol Jiménez, according to the biographical profile published on the institutional portal of the Dominican Port Authority (Apordom).
His father served as Vice Minister of Public Works during the administration of Salvador Jorge Blanco, from 1982 to 1986; Director of the National Institute of Drinking Water and Sewerage (INAPA) during the administration of Hipólito Mejía, from 2000 to 2004; and Senator for the province of El Seibo from 2004 to 2010, according to the same official source. He is married to Daniella Ramos de Rodríguez, with whom he has three children.
His foray into politics began early. In a 2023 interview with Revista Mercado, Rodríguez recalled that at age 17 he gathered a group of teenage friends and formed his first political movement, “Growing Up with Miguel,” in support of Miguel Vargas Maldonado’s presidential candidacy.
“That first political job shaped my social vision, as it put me in contact with the most impactful scenarios of poverty in the most remote corners of the Dominican Republic,” he told the publication at the time.
According to the institutional portal of Apordom, he assumed the presidency of the Youth of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) at the age of 21, in the midst of an internal crisis of the party, becoming the youngest president in the history of that youth organization; from there he promoted the campaign “Values with Jean Luis Rodríguez”.
He served as a representative in the National Congress for the province of El Seibo from 2018 to 2020, and subsequently directed the RD Vial Trust. On July 12, 2024, he assumed the executive directorship of the Dominican Port Authority, a position formalized by decree, according to the records of the Observatory of Public Officials (Observicios), under the Ministry of Public Administration.
In that administration, Rodríguez reported in February 2025 that the country had gone from three to five cruise terminals since the beginning of the current administration, with 2.7 million cruise passengers received in the previous year, a growth of 140 percent compared to the best previous year, according to the press portal of the Presidency of the Republic.
He replaces Ito Bisonó
By Decree 554-26, signed on August 16, 2026, Rodríguez was appointed Minister of Mivhed, replacing Víctor Orlando “Ito” Bisonó Haza, who went on to head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In his place at the head of Apordom, the Executive Branch appointed Francisco Alejandro Campos Álvarez, until then president of the Board of Directors of that entity, while Julia Luz Marina Múñiz Suberví assumed the presidency of that Board, according to the Presidency.
Bisonó, whom he replaces, had only been at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MIVHED) for seven months: he had taken over in January, when he replaced Carlos Bonilla Sánchez, the first head of the ministry since its creation in 2021. In that short period, Bisonó reported the delivery of nearly 900 apartments during the first half of 2026 and projected more than 4,000 additional homes for the rest of the year, in addition to announcing an update to the Dominican Seismic Code.
Rodríguez also finds a portfolio under recent technical scrutiny: the National Office of Seismic Evaluation and Vulnerability of Infrastructure and Buildings (Onesvie) has reported findings of structural vulnerability in 10 percent of the buildings it has evaluated so far, a fact that his administration will have to weigh along with the pace of titling and construction of social housing that his two predecessors left as the central axis of housing policy.
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