From evictions to gentrification, from homeless tent encampments to Google buses, the city’s biggest issues mostly took root in the Mission. The four candidates vying to represent District Nine, which also includes Bernal Heights and the Portola, say City Hall needs to move beyond squabbling about the district to actually listening to residents’ concerns about everyday life there.

“I’m running to make sure the people I grew up with have a voice in San Francisco and at City Hall,” said Melissa San Miguel, 30, an education advocate who was born and raised in the Mission and attended public schools including Lowell High and UC Berkeley, where she was valedictorian of her class.

“We’ve seen a lot of the Latino community get pushed out,” she continued. “Fewer have an opportunity to live here. It’s clear that people have been neglected here in the district.”

Along with Iswari España, who works for the city’s Human Services Agency, San Miguel is a longshot to win the contentious race.

The favorite, according to political insiders, is Hillary Ronen, a progressive and longtime legislative aide to termed-out Supervisor David Campos. Another front-runner is Joshua Arce, a more moderate candidate who has served on the city’s Commission on the Environment and the Democratic County Central Committee.

Ronen has had to spend a lot of time on the campaign trail defending the work of Campos’ office, which has often focused on citywide concerns such as making Muni free for low-income youth and attempting to stop the eviction of teachers during the school year. Detractors say the focus on big issues has come at the expense of local quality-of-life worries and responding to constituents. Ronen maintains she’ll be laser-focused on District Nine.

“I love David, and he’s been my mentor, but from the get-go of deciding to run for office I made a decision I was going to run on my own two feet as my own person,” Ronen said. “Today, we are facing very serious problems in the district. I am excited and ready to focus in on those problems and fix them.”

Ronen has a 3-year-old daughter and is married to Francisco Ugarte, an attorney at the public defender’s office who specializes in immigration law. The couple rent in the Portola, share one car, commute via Muni and plan to send their daughter to public school.

“We are experiencing the same things everyone else is, and I want to fix those problems,” she said. “I don’t want to live in a dirty city. I don’t want there to be people sleeping in the streets of our neighborhoods. I don’t want to be crammed like a sardine on the bus. I don’t want my daughter to be near human waste or needles on the street.”

In addition to focusing on quality-of-life concerns, Ronen wants to build 5,000 units of affordable housing in the district and create a universal preschool program for 4-year-olds.

Amy Beinhart is the co-chair of the Bernal Heights Democratic Club. She said she’s backing Ronen because she has the backbone and know-how to make life better for District Nine residents.

“She’s very smart, very dedicated and a very tough fighter and negotiator,” Beinhart said. “I trust her to be on the side of working families and lower-income people and people who are struggling to remain in San Francisco.”

Ronen’s main challenger is Arce, who has stressed that Ronen can’t separate herself from Campos, despite her attempts to do so.

“I see no sign the voters are going to maintain the status quo at City Hall,” Arce said. “We’re at a crisis. We’re absolutely at a breaking point in District Nine.”

He pointed to the district’s worsening homeless problem, shootings, property crime, evictions and prostitution as issues that need to be addressed.

The civil rights attorney has two boys, ages 1 and 5, with his wife, Lisa Weissman-Ward, the managing attorney at Stanford Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. They rent an apartment on 24th Street in the Mission and organized other tenants and small businesses in the building when it was put up for sale. They persuaded the former landlord to sell at a price reflective of all of them staying in place at the same rents.

In addition to building more affordable housing throughout the district, Arce wants to push for BART to build a new station at 30th Street in the Outer Mission and to convert surrounding parking lots to housing.

Mostly, Arce stresses responsiveness to constituents and bridging the political divide.

“The political dialogue has been incredibly divisive over the past several years,” he said. “We have fully embraced the call for change that we hear from District Nine voters. People are looking for a positive message.”

That sounds good to Tracy Brown-Gallardo, co-chair of the Mission Peace Collaborative and an Arce backer. She likes that Arce is Latino; his father is of Mexican descent and his mother is of Swedish descent. (His father was a Southern California police officer and met his mother, a bank teller, while responding to a bank robbery.)

Brown-Gallardo said she also likes that Arce is a longtime resident of the Mission, plans to send his two children to public school and has stressed the importance of affordable housing and violence prevention.

“I like David Campos, and I’ve supported him in the past,” she said. “But I’m going with Joshua because he has the best answers in the areas I’m really interested in.”

Heather Knight is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

District 9 candidates

JOSHUA ARCE

Age: 41

Occupation: civil rights attorney

No. 1 goal: develop affordable housing

ISWARI ESPAÑA

Age: 43

Occupation: runs professional development trainings at the city’s Human Services Agency

No. 1 goal: develop more housing

MELISSA SAN MIGUEL

Age: 30

Occupation: education advocate

No. 1 goal: develop affordable housing

HILLARY RONEN

Age: 40

Occupation: legislative aide to Supervisor David Campos

No. 1 goal: build 5,000 units of affordable housing