Head of scandal-scarred shelter agency raked in $1M in taxpayer-funded pay

The Bobster

Senior News Editor since 2004





Head of scandal-scarred shelter agency raked in $1M in taxpayer-funded pay​



By
Melissa Klein


June 4, 2022 12:45pm
Updated





Jack Brown
Jack Brown was raking in a shocking $1,069,334 in salary and benefits from CORE and related entities, according to the latest tax filings obtained by The Post. J.C. Rice for NY Post




That’s rich.
Despite vowing late last year to sever all public ties with shady non-profit housing provider CORE Services Group, the city poured at least $1.4 million into its coffers in 2022 before finally pulling the plug, according to legal documents.
And even as the city was scrutinizing the homeless-services provider, its embattled CEO Jack Brown was raking in a shocking $1,069,334 in salary and benefits from CORE and related entities, according to the latest tax filings obtained by The Post.
Brown got a 15% raise and $40,829 bonus from CORE, bringing his pay to $386,298, in 2020, the filings show. He got another $460,000 — an 8% increase from the previous year — from groups affiliated with CORE. On top of that he received $188,461 — an increase of 16% — and a $22,500 bonus from a related nonprofit called CORE Services Group NY Inc.
“It’s way out of line,” said Daniel Kurtz, a lawyer specializing in nonprofits and former head of the state Attorney General’s Charities Bureau.
Brooklyn-based CORE is being probed by federal and city investigators. Brown, 53, previously worked for Correctional Services Corp., which was embroiled in an early-2000s Albany bribery scandal.
While making millions off the poor and desperate, Brown lives in a two-bedroom penthouse apartment at The Ashland, a luxury rental in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where a similar unit goes for $7,040 a month. The high-rise has a Gotham Market food hall at its base and residents enjoy amenities that include a billiard room and a rooftop terrace.
The AshlandBrown lives in a two-bedroom penthouse apartment at The Ashland.The Ashland
Brown also bought a two-family house in Clinton Hill for $1.4 million in 2015, according to public records.
CORE had amassed government contracts worth some $800 million since 2014. By the end of 2021, it was providing services to 1,400 people and families including 1,100 homeless occupants in 10 hotels in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.
Last fall The Post documented how Brown set up a network of for-profit companies to which he funneled millions in taxpayer funds in recent years. The city said it had ordered CORE to close the groups.
The city had raised concerns about the organization’s spending in 2019 and ordered it to undergo a forensic audit in 2020, the New York Times reported in a similar expose.
homelessHomelessness soared under former Mayor de Blasio’s administration.Helayne Seidman for NY Post
The reports also revealed that Brown put family members on the CORE payroll, including his mother and brother.
The organization admits five of Brown’s relatives were CORE employees, out of 1,100, and claims they were “fully qualified for their positions” and hired in accordance with anti-nepotism policies.
Jack BrownCORE, in a statement to The Post issued by its high-powered PR firm, Marathon Strategies, said race played a role in the criticism of Brown and the organization.CORE Services Group/Facebook
The city sued Brown, CORE and related organizations in December 2021 saying in legal papers “CORE used these wholly owned, for-profit subsidiaries to overcharge the City, and siphon money intended to benefit vulnerable New Yorkers into the pockets of its executives, including its CEO Defendant Jack Brown.”
The suit notes there was a federal criminal investigation into CORE in which the city Department of Investigation was participating.

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CORE was finally booted from operating city homeless shelters on March 31. But despite the scandals and probes, it claims the city still owes it $37 million.


The Department of Homeless Services refused to say how much it paid CORE this year or why. It also refused to say who took over the organization’s contracts.


As homelessness soared under former Mayor de Blasio’s administration, the city increasingly gave contracts to nonprofits to manage shelters.







CORE maintains that as the city’s homeless problem continued to spiral out of control, de Blasio’s administration “sought to deflect criticism by scapegoating CORE in the media. It then filed a baseless and misleading lawsuit against CORE in which it feigned ignorance of CORE’s business model, which had been disclosed in detail to the city as early as 2017.”


CORE, in a statement to The Post issued by its high-powered PR firm, Marathon Strategies, said race played a role in the criticism of Brown and the organization.


“Mr. Brown’s earned income is in line with executives at similarly-sized businesses. It’s a shame that black business leaders cannot succeed in America in 2022 without their character and motives questioned,” the statement read.


It went on to claim that it was only after CORE “began requesting backlogged payments totaling nearly $37 million that bureaucrats at DHS began questioning CORE’s business model and the integrity of its leaders.”
 
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