Lonny and Teyon Fritzler stand outdoors their childhood house on the Crow Indian Reservation in Lodge Grass, Mont. The home has sat empty for years since each males left city to get better from their meth addictions.
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LODGE GRASS, Mont. — Brothers Lonny and Teyon Fritzler walked amid the tall grass and cottonwood bushes surrounding their boarded-up childhood house close to the Little Bighorn River and daydreamed about methods to rebuild.
The rolling prairie outdoors the single-story clapboard house is the place Lonny realized from their grandfather the way to break horses. It’s the place Teyon realized from their grandmother the way to harvest buffalo berries. It’s additionally the place they watched their father get hooked on meth.
Teyon, now 34, started utilizing the drug at 15 with their dad. Lonny, 41, began after school, which he mentioned was partly as a result of stress of caring for his or her grandfather with dementia. Their personal addictions to meth persevered for years, outlasting the lives of each their father and grandfather.
It took leaving their house in Lodge Grass, a city of about 500 folks on the Crow Indian Reservation, to get better. Here, methamphetamine use is widespread.
The brothers stayed with an aunt in Oklahoma as they realized to stay with out meth. Their household property has sat empty for years — the horse corral’s beams are damaged and its roof caved in, the storage tilts, and the home wants intensive repairs.
The stays of a constructing a number of blocks away from the principle avenue of Lodge Grass, Mont.
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Such crumbling buildings are frequent in this Native American community, hammered by the consequences of meth habit. Lonny mentioned some houses in disrepair would value an excessive amount of to repair. It’s typical for a number of generations to crowd beneath one roof, generally for cultural causes but additionally as a result of space’s housing scarcity.
“We have broken-down homes, a burnt one over right here, a number of homes that aren’t livable,” Lonny mentioned as he described the few neighboring houses.
Signs of recovery
In Lodge Grass, an estimated 60% of the residents age 14 and older wrestle with drug or alcohol addictions, in keeping with a neighborhood survey contracted by Mountain Shadow Association, a neighborhood, Native-led nonprofit. For many in the community, the buildings in disrepair are symbols of that wrestle.
But indicators of renewal are rising. In latest years, the city has torn down greater than two dozen deserted buildings. Now, for the primary time in a long time, new companies are going up and have grow to be new symbols — these of the city’s effort to get better from the consequences of meth.
One of these new buildings, a day care heart, arrived in October 2024. A parade of individuals adopted a truck that carried the small, picket constructing by means of city because it was delivered. It changed a previously deserted house that had examined optimistic for traces of meth.
“People have been crying,” mentioned Megkian Doyle, who heads Mountain Shadow Association, which opened the middle. “It was the primary time that you might see new and tangible issues that pulled into city.”
Megkian Doyle heads the Mountain Shadow Association, a nonprofit that’s bringing new community buildings and hope to the reservation city of Lodge Grass.
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The nonprofit can also be behind the city’s newest development undertaking: a spot the place households collectively can heal from habit. The plan is to construct a complete campus in city that gives psychological well being assets, housing for teenagers whose mother and father want remedy elsewhere, and extra, separate housing for households working to stay with out medicine and alcohol.
Years off from completion, it is common to see locals cease by to look at the progress.
“There is a ground-level swell of hope that is beginning to come up round your ankles,” Doyle mentioned.
Two of the builders on that undertaking are Lonny and Teyon Fritzler. They see the work as an opportunity to assist rebuild their community throughout the Apsáalooke Nation, also referred to as the Crow Tribe.
“When I received into development work, I truly thought God was punishing me,” Lonny mentioned. “But now, coming again, constructing these partitions, I’m like, ‘Wow. This is ours now.'”
Teyon Fritzler installs paneling on a future therapeutic foster house. He sees the work as an opportunity to rebuild his community, which is throughout the Apsáalooke Nation, also referred to as the Crow Tribe.
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Meth ‘Never Left’
Meth use is a long-standing public well being epidemic all through the U.S. and a rising contributor to the nation’s overdose disaster. The drug has been devastating in Indian Country, a time period that encompasses tribal jurisdictions and sure areas with Native American populations.
Native Americans face the highest charges of meth habit in the U.S. in contrast with every other demographic group.
“Meth has by no means left our communities,” mentioned A.C. Locklear, CEO of the National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit that works to enhance well being in Indian Country.
Many reservations are in rural areas, which have larger charges of meth use in contrast with cities. As a gaggle, Native Americans face excessive charges of poverty, power illness, and psychological sickness — all are threat components for habit. These circumstances are rooted in greater than a century of systemic discrimination, a byproduct of colonization. Meanwhile, the Indian Health Service, which supplies well being care to Native Americans, has been chronically underfunded. Cutbacks beneath the Trump administration have shrunk well being packages nationwide.
LeeAnn Bruised Head, a not too long ago retired public well being adviser with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, mentioned that regardless of the challenges, tribal nations have developed sturdy survival expertise drawing from their traditions. For instance, Crow folks have held onto their nation’s language; neighbors are sometimes household, or thought of such; and plenty of tribal members rely on their clans to mentor kids, who ultimately grow to be mentors themselves for the following era.
LeeAnn Bruised Head stands earlier than the hillside close to her childhood house on the Crow Indian Reservation, the place she grew up driving horses.
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“The power right here, the assist right here,” mentioned Bruised Head, who’s a part of the Crow Tribe. “You cannot get that wherever else.”
Signs of Rebuilding
On a fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted folks arriving for lunch on the Lodge Grass drop-in heart. The heart not too long ago opened in a former church as a spot the place folks can come for assist to remain sober or for a free meal. Dabney volunteers on the heart. He’s additionally the city’s mayor.
Dabney helped manage community cleanup days beginning in 2017, throughout which individuals picked up trash in yards and alongside roads. The focus ultimately shifted to ripping down empty, condemned homes, which Dabney mentioned had grow to be spots to promote, distribute, and use meth, typically through the day as kids performed close by.
“There was nothing stopping it right here,” Dabney mentioned.
The drawback hasn’t disappeared, although. In 2024, officers broke up a multistate trafficking operation primarily based on the Crow reservation that distributed medicine to different Montana reservations. It was one instance of how drug traffickers have focused tribal nations as gross sales and distribution hubs.
A couple of blocks from the place Dabney spoke stood the stays of a stone constructing the place somebody had spray-painted “Stop Meth” on its roofless partitions. Still, there are indicators of change, he mentioned.
Dabney pointed throughout the road to a subject the place a trailer had sat empty for years earlier than the city eliminated it. The city was midway by means of tearing down one other house in disrepair on the following block. Another home on the identical avenue was being cleaned up for an incoming renter: a brand new psychological well being employee on the drop-in heart.
Just down the street, work was underway on the brand new campus for habit recovery, known as Kaala’s Village. Kaala means “grandmother” in Crow.
The web site’s first constructing going up is a therapeutic foster house. Plans embody housing to step by step reunite households, a community backyard, and a spot to carry ceremonies. Doyle mentioned the aim is that, ultimately, residents can assist construct their very own small houses, working with skilled builders educated to offer psychological well being assist.
She mentioned one of the crucial vital facets of this work “is that we end it.”
Kaala’s Village will ultimately be a complete campus to supply providers and assist to households recovering from habit. The first constructing going up is the therapeutic foster house the Fritzler brothers are serving to to construct.
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Tribal residents and organizations have mentioned the political chaos of Trump’s first yr again in workplace exhibits the issue with relying on federal packages. It underscores the necessity for extra grassroots efforts, like what’s unfolding in Lodge Grass. But a dependable system to fund these efforts nonetheless would not exist. Last yr’s federal grant and program cuts additionally fueled competitors for philanthropic {dollars}.
Kaala’s Village is anticipated to value $5 million. The affiliation is constructing in phases as cash comes in. Doyle mentioned the group hopes to open the foster house by spring 2026, and household housing the next yr.
The web site is a couple of minutes’ drive from Lonny and Teyon’s childhood house. In addition to constructing the brand new facility’s partitions, they’re getting coaching to supply psychological well being assist. Eventually, they hope to work alongside individuals who come house to Kaala’s Village.
As for their very own house, they hope to revive it — one room at a time.
“Just piece by piece,” Lonny mentioned. “We’ve received to do one thing. We’ve received these younger ones watching.”
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working packages at KFF.
