Deaf Literacy Services Drawing Hundreds to Safety Harbor

Rosa Rodriguez isn’t deaf. She isn’t even hearing impaired. 

But it’s safe to say the diminutive Rodriguez has done more for the deaf community in Pinellas County than most anyone else, regardless of whether they are able to hear or not. 

As the coordinator for deaf literacy services for the county, the fact that Rodriguez manages everything from a small room in the Safety Harbor Public Library makes her accomplishments even more incredible. 

“Fourteen years ago, 150 deaf people moved into Safety Harbor as part of a group home,” the expressive Rodriguez said. 

“They started coming here for help ... and the library said we can’t ignore them and shut them out.” 

That spirit of inclusiveness led the library to hire Rodriguez, who has a masters degree in rehabilitation counseling and learned sign language in a church in her native Puerto Rico. 

What began as a part-time position helping 150 hearing impaired people has grown into a full-time leadership role; now Rodriguez has roughly 500 people of all ages, races and degrees of hearing loss from all over the Tampa Bay area utilizing her programs, materials and classes. 

“I get people from all over — Tampa, Pasco, St. Pete — because there’s a lack of these services around here,” she said. “That’s why we get so many people here, because they feel there’s nowhere else to go.” 

Rodriguez says one of the biggest issues facing the deaf community is the lack of communication between parents with full hearing and their kids who are hearing impaired. 

She says that 90 percent of hearing parents cannot communicate with their kids because they do not know sign language; they only encourage reading lips. 

This type of treatment leads to a feeling of helplessness and isolation in those with the impairment, which in turn leads to bouts of depression, loneliness and even violence. 

“They don’t know how to express themselves, so they lash out,” Rodriguez says.

Thanks to grants from the Pinellas Public Library Co-op, among others, and much support from the city, Rodriguez has been able to offer classes, counseling and support programs for entire families. 

Some of the services include signing classes for babies, children and adults; in-home deaf literacy teaching to help parents communicate with their deaf kids; tutoring for deaf kids and adults; and the largest selection of deaf literacy materials in the entire state.

They also host events every month, such as tonight’s tribute to the Hispanic deaf community, and most of the services are either free or covered by many insurance providers.

Even with a stable of volunteers and a couple of satellite offices in Palm Harbor and Pinellas Park, it’s amazing what Rodriguez has done for the deaf community in the area. 

"I want people to know that being deaf isn't the end of life. People outside of the deaf world are the biggest barriers to deafness."

“I’ve been doing this for 14 years,” she adds. “But I love what I do.”