Working to change Cincinnati can be like trying to stop a glacier with a hair dryer. But God bless 'em, some people are stringing together extension cords while the rest of us sit and curse the cold.

        The people at Jobs Plus in Over-the-Rhine tackle the city's toughest problems one heart at a time. In just a few years, they have melted the icy despair that froze hundreds of people in Cincinnati's poorest neighborhoods.

        While some in our community preach the gospel of anger and sermonize that nothing has changed, a handful of people at Jobs Plus are proving that even the worst burdens of poverty, drugs and crime can be lifted.

        The clients at Jobs Plus are not your typical “help wanted” applicants: 60 percent have felony records; 90 percent are black. They want a better life, but don't know how to work for it. Jobs Plus teaches them things that are as obvious as weekends in the most of us: Dress nice, be on time, be polite in an interview.

        It's one of Cincinnati's little success stories, almost lost among the garish lights and loitering hustlers on Vine Street, like finding a rosary in a junk drawer. It sits in a modest little office, on the edgy, sometimes scary street that divides Cincinnati like a zipper. This is where the riots were worst, and the spray painted reminders still remain on boarded-up buildings.

        The sign outside Jobs Plus should say “Exit Here” for anyone who wants to quit the spirit-crushing, crack-and-40-ounce career called street life.

        Those who graduate go through an interview, 10 meetings and a two-day seminar that teaches them how to find a job and keep it. Many have never worked for more than a week.

        “Unless they have a heart change, they're going to be back in the same predicament,” said Jobs Plus counselor Arnold Davis.

        Two thirds fail. “The street life is too great a pull. They don't want to give up drugs and alcohol,” said Executive Director Burr Robinson.

        Those who are strong enough to stick it out find jobs that pay about $8 an hour. Nearly two thirds of the survivors are still working six months later.

        But something is missing: The young men who smashed the windows of Jobs Plus during the riots walk by on the sidewalks outside. They cluster on corners in the middle of the day. To them, the working world is as strange and alien as the bottom of the sea. They don't come in to Jobs Plus.

        “The 18-30 group is not interested,” said Mr. Robinson. “There's not a lot of planning among our clientele,” he explained. “Especially young men. If your life was not good yesterday, it's not good today and there's not hope for tomorrow, there's no reason to set goals.”

        “What we want to offer these young people is hope, but they live in a culture of hopelessness.”

        So they slouch against brick walls in the thin November sunlight or shoot dice in the shadows, listening to the angry shouts and fight-or-flight heartbeat of rap. They are deaf to the sweet poetry of hope.

        If they could hear it, it would sound like this:

        “They showed me I'm better than this,” said one Jobs Plus success story. Along with a job, she found spiritual power and peace. “Today, I look at my life and I have hopes and dreams.”

        I sympathize with the frustration and impatience of the people who keep making demands to change Cincinnati right now — or else. But Jobs Plus has it right: The world is changed one heart at a time. Demanding instant change in a city's heart is like picketing the sun for a longer day.

        Jobs Plus relies on foundations and private donations. To help, contact Burr Robinson at 241-1800.

        Contact Enquirer Associate Editor Peter Bronson at 768-8301; fax: 768-8610; e-mail: pbronson@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Bronson.

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