PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Salvation Army estimates 3,000 street people recruited by an Indian guru to sample living in his Oregon commune will leave the sect and go home.
The tab for transporting them back will reach $300,000, according to the service organization.
The Salvation Army in Portland during the weekend sent 75 street people back to the cities across the country whence they had been lured to the commune of Bahgwan Shree Rajneesh in the central Oregon city of Rajneeshpuram.
The Portland chapter of the Salvation Army spent $10,000 on bus tickets for the 75 people, said Lt. Col. David P. Riley.
'These people were wrongly brought here because they were promised if they didn't like it they would be returned' home at the sect's expense, he said.
The Rajneeshees said about 500 of 3,500 street people brought to the commune had left.
State Sen. Dell Isham, D-Lincoln City, said he has asked the state attorney general and the president of the state Senate to study the possibility of providing transportation for the homeless people.
He proposed that if public funds are used the state should sue the guru's followers for reimbursement.
The Rajneeshees' original offer of round-trip transportation for those who did not like the commune was discontinued in mid-September. The Rajeeshees said the homeless people who slept in Portland shelters last week were not promised transportation home.
Voter registration in the county was suspended last week when street people from the commune tried to sign up for the Nov. 6 election. All new county residents will be required to attend individual hearings to determine whether they qualify to vote.
Telephoned threats kept a group of Rajneeshees from attending a Democratic Party fund-raising event in The Dalles Saturday night, a party precinct member said.
Swami Prem Siddah, one of four Rajneeshees who serve as precinct representatives for the Democrats in Rajneeshpuram and the nearby city of Rajneesh, said the calls came from a woman and a man.
He said one of the callers warned that if the Rajneeshees persisted in their plan to take about 40 street people to the fundraiser they would 'end up with your blood spread all over the place.'
Wasco County sheriff's deputies said Sunday they were investigating.
