Homeless man set on fire while asleep in San Francisco dies of his injuries

SAN FRANCISCO » A homeless man died of his injuries after being set on fire while in a sleeping bag on a San Francisco street, police said.

The 43-year-old man told investigators he was asleep Friday in the Mission District when he woke up to find his sleeping bag in flames, police said in a statement Wednesday.

The man, whose name

has not been released, was burned in the legs and was taken to a hospital, where he died Saturday.

The San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, and police are investigating and asking anyone with information to reach out to them.

More than 8,000 people live on the streets of San Francisco, where the median sale price of a house is $1.5 million, and they are easy targets for violence. Several have been killed in recent years in beatings, stabbings and other attacks.

Jennifer Friedenbach, director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said many of the attacks go unreported.

“Far too often, unhoused people experience hatebased attacks as members of a class of people who are scapegoated and typecast and vilified simply because they’re destitute,” Friedenbach said.