Click to watch Mark Greenblatt's 11 News report

The 11 News Defenders first introduced you to 78-year-old Mary English last month as part of their investigation into the city of Houston's Single Family Home Repair Program. She’s lived in her Houston home for nearly 50 years.

The city told English she qualified for the federally funded program designed to help maintain affordable housing and keep her in her home.

She qualified for help with repairs in 2006, but nothing ever got fixed. 

“I don't think they've forgotten about me. It's just that it’s just not important to them,” Mrs. English said.

And what's more, in 2004, the city promised the feds it would re-inspect and fix potentially shoddy work at thousands of other homes where work had taken place.

So what's happened in the last four years? Of 2,200 hundred homes, only 760 have been inspected again.

And it turns out one in nine homeowners have literally died, while waiting to get help.

In fact, the backlog of those who need new repairs has grown so long, the city simply stopped taking in applications, back in 2006.

And now, the federal government is giving the city of Houston 45 days to forward a detailed plan to accomplish those re-inspections. The feds are also demanding the city return millions of federal dollars that was already spent on other affordable housing programs. The federal government says those programs were mismanaged.

“The level of frustration at the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development is palpable," U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development spokesman Brian Sullivan said. "It would be great to put this behind us. Unfortunately, we have to go through this unpleasantness before we do. It’s really something the taxpayers demand of us -- many of whom live in the city of Houston."

The city’s response? Housing Director Richard Celli told 11 News he thinks the feds’ demands are a positive development that will help the city put old issues to bed for good.

Celli said he would be in Washington, D.C., later this week to answer to the Housing and Urban Development agency’s demands in person.