A nonprofit that says its
mission is to “help defray the cost of weddings” for poor Jewish couples paid
$400,000 in rent last year, even though it shares space with another
government-funded group that is under investigation.
Records show Students
Link reported the enormous rent bill while in the same humble Brooklyn building
at 5904 13th Ave. in Borough Park with Relief Resources, a health-referral
service being probed by the anti-corruption Moreland Commission panel appointed
by Gov. Cuomo.
Space isn’t the only
thing the two groups share. Three people are listed as board members of both
Relief Resources and Students Link. In fact, Shiya Ostreicher, chairman of
Students Link is a founding board member of Relief Resources.
The tax return for
Students Link says it helps disadvantaged children. But its main program over
the past three years was intended “to help defray high costs of weddings in the
Jewish community.”
In its preliminary report
released last week, the Moreland panel said it had launched a probe into an
unnamed Brooklyn group that received nearly $3 million in pork-barrel
legislative grants to provide health services “with little scrutiny and no
medical oversight.” The panel did not name the group.
But The Post identified
it as Relief Resources. State investigators on Monday confirmed the report.
“We’re going to be
looking at the health clinic the New York Post, I think, exposed the other day.
We’re going to look at where did that money go,” Moreland panel co-chairman
William Fitzpatrick said on WCNY radio’s “The Capitol Pressroom.”
“It certainly didn’t go
to improve the health of anybody in New York City. Who got those dollars?”
State probers are
examining the ownership of the groups and who is paying and collecting the
rent.
Ostreicher declined to
comment.
Brooklyn state Sen.
Simcha Felder, who steered funding to the group when he served on the City
Council, defended the work of Relief Resources and Ostreicher.
“They have an exemplary
record in helping thousands of people with mental-health issues,” he said.
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