They could let people pool it in an FC fund for buying tracts of land for housing. Then when individual housing comes out they can let players make a "down payment" of 2000 philo (and maybe some myth and the new tome too) on a piece of land, but we'd have to pay additional philo to unlock the plot so we can build an actual house. For that matter, housing materials and furniture bought with philo wouldn't be bad.

Make the tickets to get into the eventual Golden Saucer bought by philo. And/or use Philo for the games inside.