Lonny and Teyon Fritzler stand exterior their childhood residence 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 timber surrounding their boarded-up childhood residence close to the Little Bighorn River and daydreamed about methods to rebuild.
The rolling prairie exterior the single-story clapboard house is the place Lonny discovered from their grandfather how one can break horses. It is the place Teyon discovered from their grandmother how one can harvest buffalo berries. It is also 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 faculty, which he mentioned was partly because of the stress of caring for his or her grandfather with dementia. Their very own addictions to meth continued for years, outlasting the lives of each their father and grandfather.
It took leaving their residence in Lodge Grass, a city of about 500 folks on the Crow Indian Reservation, to get better. Right here, methamphetamine use is widespread.
The brothers stayed with an aunt in Oklahoma as they discovered to reside 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 couple of blocks away from the primary road of Lodge Grass, Mont.
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Such crumbling buildings are frequent on this Native American neighborhood, hammered by the consequences of meth dependancy. Lonny mentioned some houses in disrepair would price an excessive amount of to repair. It is typical for a number of generations to crowd beneath one roof, typically for cultural causes but additionally because of the space’s housing scarcity.
“We’ve broken-down homes, a burnt one over right here, a variety of homes that aren’t livable,” Lonny mentioned as he described the few neighboring houses.
Indicators of restoration
In Lodge Grass, an estimated 60% of the residents age 14 and older wrestle with drug or alcohol addictions, in line with a neighborhood survey contracted by Mountain Shadow Affiliation, a neighborhood, Native-led nonprofit. For a lot of locally, the buildings in disrepair are symbols of that wrestle.
However indicators of renewal are rising. Lately, the city has torn down greater than two dozen deserted buildings. Now, for the primary time in many years, 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.
A kind of new buildings, a day care heart, arrived in October 2024. A parade of individuals adopted a truck that carried the small, picket constructing via city because it was delivered. It changed a previously deserted residence that had examined optimistic for traces of meth.
“Individuals had been crying,” mentioned Megkian Doyle, who heads Mountain Shadow Affiliation, which opened the middle. “It was the primary time that you may see new and tangible issues that pulled into city.”
Megkian Doyle heads the Mountain Shadow Affiliation, a nonprofit that’s bringing new neighborhood buildings and hope to the reservation city of Lodge Grass.
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The nonprofit can also be behind the city’s newest building venture: a spot the place households collectively can heal from dependancy. The plan is to construct a whole campus on the town that gives psychological well being assets, housing for youths whose dad and mom want remedy elsewhere, and extra, separate housing for households working to reside with out medicine and alcohol.
Years off from completion, it’s normal to see locals cease by to look at the progress.
“There’s a ground-level swell of hope that is beginning to come up round your ankles,” Doyle mentioned.
Two of the builders on that venture are Lonny and Teyon Fritzler. They see the work as an opportunity to assist rebuild their neighborhood throughout the Apsáalooke Nation, also called the Crow Tribe.
“Once I received into building work, I truly thought God was punishing me,” Lonny mentioned. “However now, coming again, constructing these partitions, I am like, ‘Wow. That is ours now.'”
Teyon Fritzler installs paneling on a future therapeutic foster residence. He sees the work as an opportunity to rebuild his neighborhood, which is throughout the Apsáalooke Nation, also called the Crow Tribe.
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Meth ‘By no means 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 Nation, a time period that encompasses tribal jurisdictions and sure areas with Native American populations.
Native Individuals face the highest charges of meth dependancy within 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 Nationwide Indian Well being Board, a nonprofit that works to enhance well being in Indian Nation.
Many reservations are in rural areas, which have greater charges of meth use in contrast with cities. As a gaggle, Native Individuals face excessive charges of poverty, persistent illness, and psychological sickness — all are threat components for dependancy. These circumstances are rooted in greater than a century of systemic discrimination, a byproduct of colonization. In the meantime, the Indian Well being Service, which gives well being care to Native Individuals, 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 Well being Service Commissioned Corps, mentioned that regardless of the challenges, tribal nations have developed sturdy survival abilities drawing from their traditions. For instance, Crow folks have held onto their nation’s language; neighbors are sometimes household, or thought of such; and lots of tribal members depend on their clans to mentor kids, who finally grow to be mentors themselves for the subsequent technology.
LeeAnn Bruised Head stands earlier than the hillside close to her childhood residence on the Crow Indian Reservation, the place she grew up driving horses.
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“The power right here, the help right here,” mentioned Bruised Head, who’s a part of the Crow Tribe. “You’ll be able to’t get that wherever else.”
Indicators of Rebuilding
On a fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted folks arriving for lunch on the Lodge Grass drop-in heart. The middle 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 is additionally the city’s mayor.
Dabney helped arrange neighborhood cleanup days beginning in 2017, throughout which individuals picked up trash in yards and alongside roads. The main target finally shifted to ripping down empty, condemned homes, which Dabney mentioned had grow to be spots to promote, distribute, and use meth, usually throughout the day as kids performed close by.
“There was nothing stopping it right here,” Dabney mentioned.
The issue hasn’t disappeared, although. In 2024, officers broke up a multistate trafficking operation based mostly 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 “Cease Meth” on its roofless partitions. Nonetheless, there are indicators of change, he mentioned.
Dabney pointed throughout the road to a discipline the place a trailer had sat empty for years earlier than the city eliminated it. The city was midway via tearing down one other residence in disrepair on the subsequent block. One other home on the identical road was being cleaned up for an incoming renter: a brand new psychological well being employee on the drop-in heart.
Simply down the street, work was underway on the brand new campus for dependancy restoration, referred to as Kaala’s Village. Kaala means “grandmother” in Crow.
The positioning’s first constructing going up is a therapeutic foster residence. Plans embrace housing to steadily reunite households, a neighborhood backyard, and a spot to carry ceremonies. Doyle mentioned the aim is that, finally, residents will help construct their very own small houses, working with skilled builders educated to supply psychological well being help.
She mentioned some of the vital elements of this work “is that we end it.”
Kaala’s Village will finally be a whole campus to supply companies and help to households recovering from dependancy. The primary constructing going up is the therapeutic foster residence 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 counting on federal packages. It underscores the necessity for extra grassroots efforts, like what’s unfolding in Lodge Grass. However a dependable system to fund these efforts nonetheless would not exist. Final yr’s federal grant and program cuts additionally fueled competitors for philanthropic {dollars}.
Kaala’s Village is anticipated to price $5 million. The affiliation is constructing in phases as cash is available in. Doyle mentioned the group hopes to open the foster residence by spring 2026, and household housing the next yr.
The positioning is a couple of minutes’ drive from Lonny and Teyon’s childhood residence. Along with constructing the brand new facility’s partitions, they’re getting coaching to supply psychological well being help. Finally, they hope to work alongside individuals who come residence to Kaala’s Village.
As for their very own residence, they hope to revive it — one room at a time.
“Simply piece by piece,” Lonny mentioned. “We have to do one thing. We have these younger ones watching.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working packages at KFF.
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