A new report by a human rights advocacy group claims federal and local rules intended to keep public housing safe go too far, in many cases equating to a "one strike, you're out" policy.

The Human Rights Watch report released Friday said, "U.S. housing policies are so arbitrary, overbroad and unnecessarily harsh that they exclude even people who have turned their lives around and remain law-abiding, as well as others who may never have presented any risk in the first place."

Federal regulations require that applicants with certain backgrounds be rejected for federal housing assistance, such as those on the lifetime sex offender registry. Federal law also allows some discretion in using criminal background screening.

The HRW report said more than 650,000 people per year are expected to return home from prisons and jails in coming years, and those people will need homes. It said some jurisdictions go beyond excluding felons, also barring those convicted of nonviolent misdemeanors from housing assistance.

In Utah, some public housing authorities say they are stricter when evaluating potential public housing tenants than for those applying for federal Section 8 housing vouchers, because housing authorities act as landlords of public housing.

Corinne Carey, researcher for HRW's U.S. program, said some local housing authorities, such as those in Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, are too strict in checking backgrounds, often excluding people for decades-old convictions.

"If someone is offense-free for three to five years, recidivism records show they're unlikely to offend again," she said.

Carey said after a conversation with the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City, she understood the policy is to "deny first and ask questions later."

Terry Feveryear, housing operations manager for the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City, denied that claim, saying applicants are reviewed on a case-by-case basis with a focus on "a pattern of serious offenses."

Feveryear said, for example, a person would become eligible for public housing five years after being convicted of possession of marijuana if they had no other conviction. That would be reduced to three years if a drug rehabilitation program is successfully completed.

One background issue that requires automatic rejection in Salt Lake City: any eviction for nonpayment, Feveryear said.

"Generally, we screen all of our public housing tenants as any landlord would," said Doug Carlson, director of the Provo City Housing Authority. "Mainly, we're concerned with violent crimes and drug offenses."