For decades, Black veterans had a difficult time accessing GI bill benefits of home mortgages due to discriminatory practices like prohibiting Black residents from buying homes in suburbs like Levittown, New York.
Likewise, it wasn’t until 1974 when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed which granted women the right to obtain credit cards in their own name without explicit permission from their husband.
Then the second generation of construction companies in the 1970s– when companies started adding the phrase ‘and sons’ to their name – there still wasn’t equity in the market, James said. Even after laws were changed litigation lingered for years over affirmative action efforts.
“These structures were ironed out in the 90s and early 2000s,” he said. “So they had some opportunity to get on projects and to grow. But there’s relatively few of them and they are not the dominant players in the industry. I think that’s one of the reasons why you see an industry that’s not as equitable as it should be. I don’t think that’s just true in construction but across all industries.”
Carlos Jones, executive project manager for economic development projects at the Urban Affairs Coalition says the long history of racism and systemic inequality meant minorities and women were shut out of wealth generation and they still haven’t caught up.
“You would be hard pressed to say there is an African American group in the city of Philadelphia that’s doing – independently — a billion dollar project – but there’s several going on in this region,” Jones said.
Instead, what’s more common are joint ventures or even subcontracting for minority and women-owned businesses. Government agencies and even large institutions often have what’s called set aside contracts, usually smaller projects or service agreements that don’t even require the bidding process to encourage participation from historically disadvantaged businesses. To compete for government contracts or even diverse supplier programs, business owners are encouraged to get certified.
“The goals are great but you almost have to say we need a banking and capitalization component which means access to capital,” Jones said.
Beyond that, minority and women-owned companies need a pipeline of incrementally larger contracts so they can scale up operations and eventually employ thousands of workers, he said.
“If you haven’t afforded the people a chance to work on $200,000 or $300,000 projects and think they’re magically going to be capable of doing $2 billion — it’s illogical,” he said. “You have to build a pathway for success.”
Even so, a minority-owned business doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a small company. Philadelphia-based PRWT Services has about 1,500 employees and was founded about 35 years ago.
Brandon Kelley, vice president of corporate strategy at PRWT Services says that their biggest challenge these days is their size.
“In a lot of ways, we’re considered too big,” Kelley said about any minority and small business development support. “We don’t get to participate in procurements that have a set aside or points associated with being a minority business. On the flip side, we’re a lot smaller than the publicly traded billion-dollar players that we compete against. So I think the biggest challenge for us is figuring out how to be creative and show clients that we’re able to deliver just like anybody else.”
