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.