San Franciscans are evenly split on whether the city is headed in the right direction or is on the wrong track, and they view homelessness and housing as the most important issues facing their city. They blame both the tech industry and City Hall for high housing costs and traffic congestion.

These findings come from a new poll paid for by Rise SF, an advocacy group formed in September to push for more housing and better public transportation. The nonprofit has a steering committee of 22 members representing the tech industry, business and labor, and has seed money from Facebook, Dignity Health and the local construction workers union.

The telephone poll, conducted in August by EMC Research, surveyed 400 people who are likely to vote in San Francisco next month. The interviews were conducted in English and Chinese, and the margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents said the city is on the right track, and 38 percent said it’s on the wrong one. The rest had no opinion. While the percentage saying it’s on the right track has crept up slightly from 35 percent earlier this year, it’s still far below the recent high of 64 percent in 2008.

Sonja Trauss, founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Renters’ Federation and a member of the steering committee of Rise SF, said San Franciscans tend to feel better about their city when the economy is doing badly — and worse about it when the economy is booming.

“That’s because our city has all these policies that prevent it from accommodating growth — it’s not elastic,” she said. “There’s such a tight grip on the way the city is built that it stresses everything. When that tide ebbs, finally people feel relief.”

Twenty-four percent of those polled said homelessness is the city’s most important problem. Nineteen percent said housing in general, and 17 percent said affordable housing specifically. Those answers dwarfed anything else, including traffic and crime, both at 2 percent.

Asked whether the growth of the tech industry is to blame for the high cost of housing and traffic congestion, 63 percent said yes. Fifty-three percent said the city’s failure to build enough housing and invest in better transportation were also factors.

Clearly eager for housing and traffic relief, a majority of respondents endorsed every proposal asked about in the poll — including decreasing the reliance on cars, encouraging the use of car services like Zipcar and Uber, converting underused sites to apartments, and building more three- and four-bedroom apartments to keep families in the city.

The way San Franciscans view the city largely depends on how long they’ve lived here. Asked whether they’re excited about the future, 50 percent of those who have lived here five years or less said yes. Just 24 percent of natives said yes.

Leah Pimentel, a native of Bayview-Hunters Point and a member of the Rise SF steering committee, said this divide isn’t surprising.

“Back in the ’80s and ’90s, the middle class kind of had a chance,” said Pimentel, 33, who has a young son. “Things are very different now — the middle class is leaving.”

She said that one by one, her high school friends are packing up — and that the buzz on the playground is not about schools or day care, but about how long families can keep holding on here.

“Once upon a time, you could park on some city streets with no meters,” Pimentel said. “I remember when you could get from the Bayview to downtown in 20 minutes. Now it takes me 20 minutes just to get to Bayshore (Boulevard). It’s definitely different than when I grew up.”

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