Level of Deaf Friendliness?

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nonpareilpearl

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My gf and I are, at some point in the next few years, hoping to move to Washington DC (or related areas). But I am also hoping to go to graduate school in that time frame (after a short, money-building, break). Since she is HoH I was hoping to check areas around the schools I am interested in, such as UPenn, for "Deaf Friendliness". The area we are living in now (WNY), is not so much. She has huge issues when she needs to use Sorenson or IP-Relay (someone at a business she contacted even said over the connection "ungh I don't have time for relay right now"). Yeah. Just hoping to avoid that nonsense.

Any help or thoughts appreciated!
 
Washington D.C. is the home of Gallaudet! You'll find plenty of Deaf friendliness here!
 
Thanks for the reply! Actually I do not know if we'll head straight to DC or if we'll stop somewhere on the way (for instance if I go to UPenn for grad school, in Philadelphia). When I googled the city (Phili, not DC) and "deaf" I saw a lot of businesses (and a couple schools) pop up, but I'm not sure if that's a good indicator or not. I mean we have a Deaf school near us in WNY, and we have DAS (Deaf Adult Services) and the like, but it's still not very deaf friendly. Is there any resource to check? Or would it be better to simply poke around the area itself and see if she has problems with her service animal or IP relay and etc.?
 
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nonpareil -- Your girlfriend might have issues with her service animal regardless of the level of Deaf friendliness. 1) A lot of Deaf/Hoh people feel they don't need a service animal and judge those who use one. 2) Walking into stores and so on, it's not always guaranteed that the store owner will be accepting. So service animal acceptance isn't a good litmus test.

I think you should be fine in the D.C. area. A lot of Gallaudet graduates find jobs not far from D.C., either in D.C. or one of the surrounding cities. I think researching Deaf schools is a good idea too -- wherever there is a Deaf school, there is a Deaf culture. Unfortunately I don't know of any names off the top of my head, otherwise I would give you some.

Good luck in your searches.
 
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