Cordelia Myles was a homeless, jobless, single mother of four just five years ago. Her clerk's job in a ballbearing company didn't survive a car wreck and the time she took to care for her cancer-stricken mother.

By the time she got unemployment compensation, her car had been repossessed and she'd been evicted.

Months of living at a friend's house, then a motel, ended when Myles took her children out in a cold rain to a gas station pay phone and dialed a homeless shelter.

"It was very, very devastating," she says now. "At the shelter, after that first night, my oldest daughter told me that was the best night's sleep she'd had in a long time."

So began Myles' climb. She searched for three months before she found a landlord who'd rent to her.

Next came finding a job. Myles hadn't held one in two years.

"I felt stupid trying to go back to work," the high school graduate says. "Who's going to hire a mother with little children? How can I keep a job?"

Cincinnati Works was how.

A caseworker recommended the small, private nonprofit group in downtown Cincinnati because it specializes in helping discouraged unemployed people work to self-sufficiency.

It helped Myles land a customer-service job at Fifth Third Bank, where she is now a loan closer.

There are more than 58,400 unemployed workers in the Cincinnati region, according to Ohio and Kentucky data; thousands more aren't counted because they've stopped looking for work.

In its seven years, Cincinnati Works has helped more than 1,200 people land jobs, mostly entry-level, but with benefits.

About 150 of these workers also attend college or other career training, thanks to Cincinnati Works.

Even people with criminal - but nonviolent - records get jobs. Cincinnati Works has gotten some 200 records expunged.

It also links workers with day care services, high school equivalency programs, child support assistance and mental health services. The agency employs a chaplain and a psychologist.

"Sixty percent of the people who walk in our door walk in with chronic depression," says David Phillips, a former accounting executive who headed Downtown Cincinnati Inc. for five years before founding Cincinnati Works with his wife, Liane.

Once the agency's members - they don't call them clients - land a job, coaches call weekly, then monthly, then quarterly to help with the transition, says Beth Smith, Cincinnati Works president.

"People don't leave their jobs because of money issues,'' she says. "They don't stay because they don't feel welcome; they're confused or they're made to feel stupid."

Myles hasn't felt stupid for a long time.

Now, at 40, she is filling out enrollment applications for colleges. She wants to become a motivational speaker.

"Somewhere in this world there's a young girl or woman who has no hope,'' she says. "You have choice for a better life. ... You need to use avenues like Cincinnati Works to get there."

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395