Assault and battery and theft, for example, would prompt further review only if a person was applying within three years of conviction or one year of release from prison. Drug possession would demand further review only if the screening was coming within one year of conviction or release.

Multiple convictions within the previous 10 years would demand further review, but even then, an applicant would at least get a chance.

From August 2016 to March 2019, the Housing Authority of New Orleans received 52 panel review requests. Only one person has been denied.

“If you give people an opportunity to sit down and talk about the issues in a safe setting where you can really dig into ‘What was the issue? Is that still an issue?’ there’s really hardly anybody that you would say you wouldn’t move into public housing and Section 8,” said Maggie Merrill, the agency’s director of asset management.

But the vast majority of people on housing assistance are not given apartments in traditional public housing but instead vouchers to rent from private landlords. Even people who clear the housing authority’s review process might find themselves denied a roof over their heads after landlords conduct their own background checks.

“If you’re a landlord that’s on our voucher list as someone that accepts our vouchers, and we’ve issued a voucher, I don’t feel that the private landlords should be doing yet another background check,” said Dolfinette Martin, a resident representative who sits on the review panel and is the operations manager at Operation Restoration, a nonprofit that advocates for women who were formerly incarcerated.