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 methods to break horses. It is the place Teyon realized from their grandmother methods to 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 school, which he mentioned was partly as a result of stress of caring for his or her grandfather with dementia. Their very own 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 individuals on the Crow Indian Reservation, to get better. Right here, methamphetamine use is widespread.
The brothers stayed with an aunt in Oklahoma as they realized to dwell 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 in depth repairs.
The stays of a constructing a couple of blocks away from the principle road of Lodge Grass, Mont.
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Such crumbling buildings are frequent on this Native American group, hammered by the results of meth dependancy. Lonny mentioned some properties 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 in addition as a result of space’s housing scarcity.
“Now 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 properties.
Indicators of restoration
In Lodge Grass, an estimated 60% of the residents age 14 and older battle with drug or alcohol addictions, in response to 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 battle.
However indicators of renewal are rising. In recent times, 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 turn into new symbols — these of the city’s effort to get better from the results of meth.
A kind of new buildings, a day care middle, 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 house 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 possibly can see new and tangible issues that pulled into city.”
Megkian Doyle heads the Mountain Shadow Affiliation, a nonprofit that’s bringing new group buildings and hope to the reservation city of Lodge Grass.
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The nonprofit can be behind the city’s newest building mission: a spot the place households collectively can heal from dependancy. The plan is to construct a complete campus on the town that gives psychological well being sources, housing for teenagers whose dad and mom want remedy elsewhere, and extra, separate housing for households working to dwell with out medication and alcohol.
Years off from completion, it’s normal to see locals cease by to observe 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 mission are Lonny and Teyon Fritzler. They see the work as an opportunity to assist rebuild their group throughout the Apsáalooke Nation, often known as the Crow Tribe.
“After I obtained 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 house. He sees the work as an opportunity to rebuild his group, which is throughout the Apsáalooke Nation, often known as 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 People face the highest charges of meth dependancy within the U.S. in contrast with some 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 People face excessive charges of poverty, power illness, and psychological sickness — all are danger 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 supplies well being care to Native People, has been chronically underfunded. Cutbacks beneath the Trump administration have shrunk well being applications 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 expertise drawing from their traditions. For instance, Crow individuals have held onto their nation’s language; neighbors are sometimes household, or thought-about such; and plenty of tribal members depend on their clans to mentor youngsters, who finally turn into mentors themselves for the following technology.
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 energy right here, the assist right here,” mentioned Bruised Head, who’s a part of the Crow Tribe. “You possibly can’t get that wherever else.”
Indicators of Rebuilding
On a fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted individuals arriving for lunch on the Lodge Grass drop-in middle. The middle not too long ago opened in a former church as a spot the place individuals can come for assist to remain sober or for a free meal. Dabney volunteers on the middle. He is additionally the city’s mayor.
Dabney helped set up group 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 turn into spots to promote, distribute, and use meth, usually throughout the day as youngsters 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 medication to different Montana reservations. It was one instance of how drug traffickers have focused tribal nations as gross sales and distribution hubs.
A number 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 subject the place a trailer had sat empty for years earlier than the city eliminated it. The city was midway via tearing down one other house in disrepair on the following 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 middle.
Simply down the highway, work was underway on the brand new campus for dependancy restoration, known as Kaala’s Village. Kaala means “grandmother” in Crow.
The positioning’s first constructing going up is a therapeutic foster house. Plans embody housing to steadily reunite households, a group backyard, and a spot to carry ceremonies. Doyle mentioned the aim is that, finally, residents may help construct their very own small properties, working with skilled builders skilled to offer psychological well being assist.
She mentioned probably the most necessary facets of this work “is that we end it.”
Kaala’s Village will finally be a complete campus to supply providers and assist to households recovering from dependancy. The primary 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 12 months again in workplace reveals the issue with counting on federal applications. 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 12 months’s federal grant and program cuts additionally fueled competitors for philanthropic {dollars}.
Kaala’s Village is predicted to price $5 million. The affiliation is constructing in phases as cash is available in. Doyle mentioned the group hopes to open the foster house by spring 2026, and household housing the next 12 months.
The positioning is a couple of minutes’ drive from Lonny and Teyon’s childhood house. Along with constructing the brand new facility’s partitions, they’re getting coaching to supply psychological well being assist. Finally, 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.
“Simply piece by piece,” Lonny mentioned. “We have got to do one thing. We have got these younger ones watching.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is without doubt one of the core working applications at KFF.
