More than 5,000 homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy are being restored under the city's Build it Back program. Last week, we reported that work on 25 percent of those homes will not be completed by the mayor's year-end deadline. For one Staten Island woman, the delays have had painful consequences. Borough Reporter Amanda Farinacci reports.

"Are you back?"

It is a question Kathleen Wong is often asked as work drags on at her Sandy-damaged home in New Dorp Beach, on Staten Island.

Her answer - 'No - makes her heart break. Because when she finally moves back in, it will be without her husband, Chi.

He learned he had stage four cancer soon after the couple moved out. And his dying wish, his wife says, was to be able to return.

"He wanted to live in his own home, he wanted to die in his own home," Wong said.

At first, it appeared Chi would get that wish.

Build it Back, the city agency overseeing Hurricane Sandy reconstruction projects, assured the couple that work on their house — elevating it to meet new flood guidelines — would be completed by March.

"And he said 'Ok, I can wait till March. I can fight till March.'"

But it was months before the tell-tale green fence that signifies the start of elevation work was put up.

Kathleen Wong kept calling Build it Back. And the agency kept pushing back the completion date.

"And then it was June, and then the last time I think they said October," Wong said. "And I said 'Chi,' I said, 'October,' and he cried. He's like, 'I can't make it.' And he didn't."

Chi Wong died in September, a victim of bile duct cancer.

"They tried," Wong said "I asked them to put a rush on it, but when I didn't see the green fence for so long..."

Officials with Build it Back say they tried to get the Wongs back home quickly.

They blame the delays on structural and foundation problems discovered when the home was lifted, and now say the job will be completed next month.

That is a small consolation for Kathleen Wong.

"This is just a house," she said. "It's not, yes do I want to go back in? Absolutely. But it's just a shelter."

Build it Back could not tell us why it took months for the work to begin.

The agency declined to tell NY1 the cost of the work. But a contractor familiar with the project estimated the final cost at about $1 million — much more than the value of the home.