Hillary Ronen
Hillary Ronen is an American politician and attorney who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, representing District 9 from 2017 to 2025. District 9 includes the Mission District, Bernal Heights, and Portola.
Ronen was born into a working-class immigrant Jewish family. Her father came to the United States from Israel and her mother was a schoolteacher. She earned a BA from the University of California, San Diego, and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley. After college, she moved to the Mission District and worked as an immigrant rights attorney with La Raza Centro Legal. In 2013, she helped pass the California Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights, which sets overtime pay rules for domestic workers.
Before joining the board, Ronen was a legislative aide and chief of staff to Supervisor David Campos, where she supported proposals to restrict market-rate housing in parts of San Francisco. When Campos was term-limited, Ronen won the 2016 election to succeed him, defeating Joshua Arce. She teamed up with other candidates to push priorities like universal preschool.
Ronen was sworn in on January 9, 2017, helping create a female-majority Board of Supervisors for the first time in two decades. She was reelected unopposed in 2020, receiving nearly all votes.
In 2022, she authored a Charter Amendment called the "Student Success Fund," which would provide $60 million per year for community schools. The money would come from redirecting state educational funds that San Francisco receives, and Proposition G passed the city ballot with about 78% support.
Key work and votes
- 2017: Proposed counting children as tenants for relocation payments under Ellis Act evictions.
- 2018: Opposed a 75-unit building near a laundromat for environmental reasons but later allowed the project to proceed after the appeal process ran out.
- 2019: Opposed California SB 50, which would allow denser housing near transit; worked to tighten tenant buyout laws to curb abuses.
- 2021: Voted against a large, partly affordable housing project on a Nordstrom’s valet lot by a BART station, a vote that drew criticism. She later said she was still pro-housing.
- 2019–2021: Worked on Crescent Heights site deals to meet affordable housing goals and support new developments that would add low-income units.
- 2019: Helped push Mental Health SF, a plan to create universal mental health services and related programs.
- 2019–2020: Worked to keep the city’s Adult Residential Facility open for people with severe mental illness.
Public safety and policing
- 2020–2022: Called for cuts to the San Francisco Police Department budget and criticized increases in police funding.
- She opposed setting minimum police staffing levels and clashed with the police chief over investigations and officer behavior.
- In 2023, she pressed for more police presence in the Mission after a surge in crime, and faced critique for focusing policing in her district.
Controversy
- In 2019, she supported Fernando Madrigal, a Norteños member involved in gang activity. In 2023, after Madrigal was linked to the killing of a 15-year-old, Ronen apologized to the victim’s mother and said she hadn’t known Madrigal’s full involvement.
Personal life
Ronen is married to Francisco Ugarte. They live in Bernal Heights with their daughter.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 20:42 (CET).