ThrowTeenFelon
It's going to take a movement to raise awareness about felons not being a Protected Class, and the legalized-discrimination that implies.
The way I usually phrase it is:
"What would you do if you were black/hispanic/asian and someone said:
'Yeah there's nothing technically WRONG with you as an applicant.
'But we just don't really house/hire YOUR KIND around here. Just policy, nothing personal, sorry.'"
This is just an expected occurrence as a felon, regardless of how long it's been.
But who is going to raise such awareness? Someone who can afford to lose their job?
Which unfortunately isn't me at the moment, and it sounds like isn't you.
I became a convicted felon a hair after my 18th birthday, for a trespassing charge I received while out-of-my-mind high on drugs.
Long story short, by the time I started highschool, I was experimenting with drugs and skipping school. I was in and out of youth prison for drug-related stuff, and never finished highschool. My life spiraled out of control, in full-blown drug addiction, until I finally landed a year in jail and this felony charge right when I turned 18.
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I had been doing code stuff for fun, through video game scripting (Lua, some Visual Basic) ever since I was a child and it really paid off.
Today, I have a career in a semi-well-known upstart tech company and live a life I never could have dreamed. But it could come crashing down at any moment. I'm still on felony probation almost a decade later for something I did when I was 18, due to massive debt I have to pay off.
It makes it nearly impossible for me or my wife to find housing, since felons aren't a protected class (IE, you can legally discriminate against us, unlike people with disabilities or on the basis of race).
By no exaggeration, I went through nearly a dozen interview processes while my wife I were working minimum-wage manual labor jobs on the brink of homelessness, to be given an offer letter and then rescinded due to HR blanket "no-felons" policies. "We're so sorry. We would be happy to recommend you to anyone else, though." It became a running joke. I'd do multiple interview rounds which all went well, have a good sense I'd get an offer, and feel nothing from it because I knew I'd have it yanked out from under me on a technicality.
Even today, I live in constant terror that my current employer or coworkers would find out. It's been ~10 years for christ's sake, I've never done anything else in my life. I can't express to you all how absolutely fucked it is to go to prison and become a convicted felon.
Actions speak louder than words, but I'm saving up enough to quit my job and try to secure state funding to back into prisons and teach development + give other people a reason to wake up every morning.
It's really hard not to neck yourself when you're staring at doing multiple years/decades in one of our country's fine estates.