Historical & Current Events dictionary
home provider
[ hohm pruh-vahy-der ]
What does home provider mean?
The term home provider refers to a person or company that owns or manages a rental property. Home provider is sometimes used as an alternative to the word landlord.
Some avoid using the word landlord due to perceiving it as antiquated (particularly due to its association with the medieval feudal system and the implications this carries).
Additionally, some prefer to use gender-neutral alternatives to landlord and its female equivalent landlady.
Some people who are in this role themselves use home provider instead of landlord, sometimes as a way of avoiding the stigma and stereotype associated with the term. A similar term is housing provider.
Some renters and advocates criticize such avoidance of the term landlord as simply a “rebranding” intended to distract from commonly criticized issues, such as unfairly raising rent and failing to properly maintain properties or respond to residents’ needs.
Home provider is also sometimes used in the context of homelessness to refer to a person or agency that provides housing to people who are unhoused.
Who uses home provider?
“The smartest way to be a good home provider is to invest in the resident experience.”
Here’s a look at how @wylandlord works with home providers like #Ciminelli to create a better experience for residents across the board.
More here via @TheBuffaloNews: https://t.co/UPkNfOcYFI
— WYL (@wyldotco) May 31, 2022
I hear you and I see the biz side. Airfare goes up with fuel surchrages, yet home providers (landlords) can't pass on their increased expenses in the same way.
— Trudi (@Trudiagogo) December 14, 2018
So many levels to this, but I especially love when landlords call themselves “home providers” as though if they got out of the business the home would just evaporate into thin air
— Shane Phillips (@ShaneDPhillips) October 18, 2020
THIS ENTRY IS SPONSORED BY WYL
WYL sponsored this entry to further its mission of redefining the role of home providers and their relationship to their residents.
WYL defines a home provider as: “An owner/operator who views their resident(s) as human, first, and deserving of respect and dignity.”
As a platform that works to make renting more transparent, WYL knows that the landlord-resident dynamic can involve a lot of baggage.
As part of their mission, the folks at WYL want to redefine how landlords view themselves and their role. That’s the motivation behind their promotion of the term home provider as an alternative to landlord.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of home provider like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of home provider that will help our users expand their word mastery.