Need advice screening new tenant

[Melody Dodderer]

I'm in the process of turning over one of my units and, every landlord's nightmare, it's midwinter and tenants are scarce. I have an applicant and I was hoping for some feedback on whether or not I should pursue getting this person into the unit. She emailed me with a bit of a sob story about how no one would rent to her because she has a five year old drug possession charge on her record, but she has been clean ever since. She is on government assistance full time and is expecting a baby. She says she is willing to pay six months rent in advance and can have her mother cosign if there is any financial difficulty. Six months up front and clean for five years sounds nice, but I'm worried about the drug charge and potential relapses, and also the lack of employment (I'm not familiar enough with government assistance programs to know how steady that is). Any feedback would be great!