LODGE GRASS, Mont. — Brothers Lonny and Teyon Fritzler walked amid the tall grass and cottonwood timber surrounding their boarded-up childhood dwelling 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 realized from their grandfather the right way to break horses. It’s the place Teyon realized from their grandmother the right 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 faculty, which he stated 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 dwelling 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 realized 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. Such crumbling buildings are widespread on this Native American neighborhood, hammered by the consequences of meth dependancy. Lonny stated some properties in disrepair would price 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 because of the space’s housing scarcity.
“We’ve got broken-down homes, a burnt one over right here, plenty of homes that aren’t livable,” Lonny stated as he described the few neighboring properties.
In Lodge Grass, an estimated 60% of the residents age 14 and older battle with drug or alcohol addictions, in accordance with an area survey contracted by the Mountain Shadow Affiliation, an area, Native-led nonprofit. For a lot of in the neighborhood, 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 a long time, new companies are going up and have develop into new symbols — these of the city’s effort to get better from the consequences of meth.
A type of new buildings, a day care middle, arrived in October 2024. A parade of individuals adopted the small, wood constructing by city because it was delivered on the again of a truck. It changed a previously deserted dwelling that had examined optimistic for traces of meth.
“Individuals have been crying,” stated Megkian Doyle, who heads the Mountain Shadow Affiliation, which opened the middle. “It was the primary time that you would see new and tangible issues that pulled into city.”
The nonprofit can be behind the city’s newest building challenge: 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 therapy elsewhere, and housing for households working to reside with out medicine and alcohol.
Although the challenge is years away from completion, locals usually cease by to look at the progress.
“There’s a ground-level swell of hope that’s beginning to come up round your ankles,” Doyle stated.
Two of the builders on that challenge are Lonny and Teyon Fritzler. They see the work as an opportunity to assist rebuild their neighborhood inside the Apsáalooke Nation, often known as the Crow Tribe.
“Once I acquired into building work, I really thought God was punishing me,” Lonny stated. “However now, coming again, constructing these partitions, I’m like, ‘Wow. That is ours now.’”
Meth ‘By no means Left’
Meth use is a long-standing public health epidemic all through the U.S. and a rising contributor to the nation’s overdose crisis. The drug had been devastating in Indian Nation, a term that encompasses tribal jurisdictions and sure areas with Native American populations.
Native People face the highest rates of meth addiction within the U.S. in contrast with some other demographic group.
“Meth has by no means left our communities,” stated A.C. Locklear, CEO of the National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit that works to enhance well being in Indian Nation.
Many reservations are in rural areas, which have higher rates of meth use in contrast with cities. As a gaggle, Native People face excessive charges of poverty, persistent illness, and psychological sickness — all are risk factors for addiction. These situations are rooted in more 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 under the Trump administration have shrunk well being applications nationwide.
LeeAnn Bruised Head, a lately retired public well being adviser with the U.S. Public Well being Service Commissioned Corps, stated that regardless of the challenges, tribal nations have developed robust 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 depend on their clans to mentor youngsters, who finally develop into mentors themselves for the subsequent technology.
“The energy right here, the assist right here,” stated Bruised Head, who’s a part of the Crow Tribe. “You’ll be able to’t get that anyplace else.”
Indicators of Rebuilding
On a fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted folks arriving for lunch on the Lodge Grass drop-in middle. The middle lately 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 middle. He’s additionally the city’s mayor.
Dabney helped manage neighborhood cleanup days beginning in 2017, throughout which individuals picked up trash in yards and alongside roads. The main focus finally shifted to ripping down empty, condemned homes, which Dabney stated had develop into spots to promote, distribute, and use meth, usually through the day as youngsters performed close by.
“There was nothing stopping it right here,” Dabney stated.
The issue 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 targeted 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 stated.
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 by tearing down one other dwelling 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 middle.
Simply down the highway, work was underway on the brand new campus for dependancy restoration, referred to as Kaala’s Village. Kaala means “grandmother” in Crow.
The location’s first constructing going up is a therapeutic foster dwelling. Plans embody housing to progressively reunite households, a neighborhood backyard, and a spot to carry ceremonies. Doyle stated the purpose is that, finally, residents may help construct their very own small properties, working with skilled builders skilled to supply psychological well being assist.
She stated one of the vital essential facets of this work “is that we end it.”
Tribal residents and organizations have stated the political chaos of Trump’s first yr 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 doesn’t exist. Final yr’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 stated the group hopes to open the foster dwelling by spring, and household housing the next yr.
The location is a couple of minutes’ drive from Lonny and Teyon’s childhood dwelling. 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 dwelling to Kaala’s Village.
As for their very own dwelling, they hope to revive it — one room at a time.
“Simply piece by piece,” Lonny stated. “We’ve acquired to do one thing. We’ve acquired these younger ones watching.”
