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He was fresh out of a halfway house, after doing a stint in federal prison on wire fraud charges.

He was looking for a job. It was tough sledding.

Even for a man with an MBA and 25 years in marketing and communications, it’s tough to get employers to overlook felony convictions, or to tell them that your probation officer will have to visit before you start work.

Eventually he found a job at UPS making $9 an hour. But he hasn’t given up on getting back into a profession that would allow him to make more money and rebuild his life after prison.

So last year, he attended the put on by St. Louis University at Chaifetz Arena. The fair, billed as the largest such job fair in the nation, gives employers willing to hire people with criminal convictions on their record a chance to meet face to face with people like Charles, who asked me not to use his last name.

Well, last year’s fair was face-to-face. This year, because of COVID-19, the fair was virtual. Charles attended again. He’s working two jobs, and even when he interviews with employers who say they will hire formerly incarcerated people, he struggles to get offers for anything other than menial work.

“Over the last 18 months, I have applied for nearly 1,700 jobs on and 1,500 on ,” Charles says. “I get a lot of phone interviews based on my background and experience. I have done many in-person interviews and been in the final round of consideration about 10 times or so for the role. However, once my past is discussed, the risk tolerance of the employer shuts it down. No one has been willing to give me a chance. Despite having over 15 letters of reference, they will not continue the conversation. In one instance, I was considered for the marketing director for a St. Louis-based company which is Christian-based and focused on supporting church communities. Even they wouldn’t show the grace of considering me further.”

Similar experiences have led Larissa Brady to give up on getting back into sales. Now she focuses on trying to find construction work. She got out of prison in 2018 and found construction work in Springfield, Missouri. But she moved to St. Louis, in part, so she could complete Drug Court and be closer to family.

“My options are limited,� Brady says. “It can be a real uphill battle.�

She’s staying in a sober-living home where many of her roommates face a similar struggle.

That struggle is about to get worse, suspects Jeff Smith.

The former Missouri state senator knows what it is like to get out of prison and struggle to find a job. Now the executive director of the Missouri Workforce Housing Association, he helped organize the fair and served as its emcee. Because the coronavirus pandemic forced SLU to go virtual, it also got the supporters of the fair, including the and , to think about a major change. It’s no longer a once-a-year event, but a permanent digital portal trying to connect employers with job seekers, who can create video introductions that employers can search.

That’s what Kenneth Dillon did. He’s been out of prison since 2005 and started his own limo company. But the coronavirus pandemic killed his business. He’s moved from Elgin, Illinois, to St. Louis and is looking for meaningful employment.

“I hope that someone out there is willing to give me a chance,� he says in his employment video.

With COVID-19 creating massive unemployment and prison populations trending downward, those leaving incarceration might have a more difficult time finding work than usual, Smith says.

“If we care about public safety and assisting the most vulnerable, then our region should be intentional about bringing this population into the workforce so that they can be part of the mainstream economy instead of being pushed into the underground one,� he says.

Charles thinks back to his sentencing, where the federal judge suggested he’d have no trouble regaining employment in his field after his time behind bars.

“Well, that lifetime appointed public servant had no understanding of the barriers that those with a conviction face in the real world,� he says. “There is a real lack of tolerance to give anyone a chance other than low paying jobs with no benefits.�