She experienced early years of poverty with intermittent homelessness and foster care shaped by her mother’s severe mental illness, until her grandmother gained custody of Black and her younger sister.

[8] In 1999 Black started classes at Portland State University as working single mother, and in 2001 won a scholarship[9] to attend Lewis & Clark College, where she graduated with a B.A.

[12] Black initiated social media-based mutual aid with the Facebook group PDX Renters Unite, began working with others including Chloe Eudaly who were also using social media networks to mobilize around renters rights, and conducted research as a member of a Portland City Club study group on affordable housing.

[14][15][16] PTU has organized protests demanding a rent freeze and an end to no-cause evictions,[17][18] and joined resistance to sweeps against camps of houseless people.

[citation needed] Unconstrained by orthodox assumptions, Black and PTU have developed novel approaches to housing policy and law with legislative allies, such as Portland’s Relocation Assistance Ordinance, which passed with leadership from the newly elected Chloe Eudaly in 2017.

[23][24] In the 2017 Oregon legislative session, long-time state senator and landlord Rod Monroe so weakened a PTU-influenced tenant rights bill that PTU felt forced to reverse course and oppose the amended version.