5:43 There is no New York state office dedicated to serving the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Now, a few lawmakers from the Hudson Valley hope to change that. Sean Gerlis is deaf, the third generation in his family; his son is the fourth. The West Nyack, Rockland County resident, citing statistics from a number of sources, says about 50 million people in the U.S. have some degree of hearing loss, out of a population of more than 300 million. Gerlis communicates using an American Sign Language interpreter via a video relay service. He says New York has many schools for the deaf as well as resources.