Replacing "Landlord" with "Housing Provider"

[Laura Guy]

Our team in Indiana has hired a lobbyist to represent the interests of housing providers and investors.  One of our first objectives is to replace the word "landlord" with "housing provider" in ALL pieces of legislation.  The "lords of the land" in history refers to landowners that essentially provided housing and oversaw most aspects of tenants lives.  We are housing providers that provide a product/service in exchange for money.  That is it. However, we need to find a term that replaces "landlord' for commercial providers as well - any ideas?  

[Account Closed]

The entire point of language is to communicate. When the language we employ fails to create an understanding between people and further creates a misunderstanding between people, the language is a failed one. The use of ambiguous terms is never helpful for the purpose of clarity, and can be disastrous when used in legislation. Politicians love ambiguous terms and employ them endlessly.

The term "housing provider" does not well describe the property owner within the business of residential rental property. It is ambiguous and suggests a role that is false. I own property and I rent it to people for them to use however, they have provided the housing for themselves, not the other way around. I provide housing for myself and my dependents; my employer does not do that for me, my bank does not do that for me, and the builder who constructed my house does not do that for me - we are not all housing providers, only I am. The term "housing provider" suggests a dependent is involved.

I am a property owner. I provide a leasing opportunity to people who are in need of housing. If anything, we are lease providers and not housing providers. As it turns out, more specific terms for landlord and tenant already exist in the legal world, they are lessor and lessee. Look at that, the terms are specific to exactly what it is we all are doing, in no uncertain terms. Perhaps what's really needed is a lesson in vocabulary.

With all due respect, I think this endeavor is dumb. There is nothing that needs to be solved and further, the suggestion of using the term "housing provider" creates unnecessary ambiguity when the entire rationale for the change according to the OP is to eliminate ambiguity. This is an incredible waste of time and money that in my opinion makes things worse, not better for landlords or tenants or anyone. Frankly, using a term like 'housing provider' in this situation is downright thoughtless and lazy. If it's all that bothersome and persons are bent on making a change, use lessor and lessee. People can Google what those terms mean if they don't already know. Even then though, what about all the legislation that already uses the terms landlord and tenant??? LOL. Is someone going to go back and get all those pieces of legislation changed too? How about the ambiguity of having one term used in the past and another used now and into the future? Will the term "housing provider" be deemed inappropriate in the future and then someone will go back and change everything again? Will we have three different terms for the same thing depending on when the legislation was written? Good grief. Leave well enough alone.

This whole thing stinks of PC BS to me.