Katheryn Houghton
LODGE GRASS, Mont. — Brothers Lonny and Teyon Fritzler walked amid the tall grass and cottonwood bushes surrounding their boarded-up childhood dwelling 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 discovered from their grandfather the way to break horses. It’s the place Teyon discovered 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 because of the stress of caring for his or her grandfather with dementia. Their personal addictions to meth endured for years, outlasting the lives of each their father and grandfather.
It took leaving their dwelling in Lodge Grass, a city of about 500 individuals on the Crow Indian Reservation, to recuperate. 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 in depth repairs. Such crumbling buildings are widespread on this Native American group, hammered by the results of meth dependancy. Lonny mentioned some properties in disrepair would value an excessive amount of to repair. It’s typical for a number of generations to crowd underneath one roof, generally for cultural causes but in addition because of the space’s housing scarcity.
“We have broken-down houses, a burnt one over here, a lot of houses that are not livable,” Lonny mentioned 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 keeping with an area survey contracted by the Mountain Shadow Association, an area, Native-led nonprofit. For many in the neighborhood, the buildings in disrepair are symbols of that battle. 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 recuperate from the results of meth.
One of these 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 constructive for traces of meth.
“People were crying,” mentioned Megkian Doyle, who heads the Mountain Shadow Association, which opened the middle. “It was the first time that you could see new and tangible things that pulled into town.”
The nonprofit can also be behind the city’s newest development undertaking: 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 sources, housing for teenagers whose mother and father want therapy elsewhere, and housing for households working to reside with out medicine and alcohol.
Though the undertaking is years away from completion, locals usually cease by to observe the progress.
“There is a ground-level swell of hope that’s starting to come up around 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 group throughout the Apsáalooke Nation, often known as the Crow Tribe.
“When I got into construction work, I actually thought God was punishing me,” Lonny mentioned. “But now, coming back, building these walls, I’m like, ‘Wow. This is ours now.’”
Meth ‘Never 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 Country, a term that encompasses tribal jurisdictions and sure areas with Native American populations.
Native Americans face the highest rates of meth addiction within the U.S. in contrast with some other demographic group.
“Meth has never 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 higher rates of meth use in contrast with cities. As a gaggle, Native Americans face excessive charges of poverty, continual illness, and psychological sickness — all are risk factors for addiction. These circumstances are rooted in more 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 under the Trump administration have shrunk well being packages nationwide.
LeeAnn Bruised Head, a lately retired public well being adviser with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, mentioned that regardless of the challenges, tribal nations have developed robust survival abilities drawing from their traditions. For instance, Crow individuals 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 youngsters, who ultimately grow to be mentors themselves for the following technology.
“The strength here, the support here,” mentioned Bruised Head, who’s a part of the Crow Tribe. “You can’t get that anywhere else.”
Signs of Rebuilding
On a fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted individuals arriving for lunch on the Lodge Grass drop-in middle. The middle lately 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’s 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 focus ultimately shifted to ripping down empty, condemned homes, which Dabney mentioned had grow to be spots to promote, distribute, and use meth, usually in the course of the day as youngsters performed close by.
“There was nothing stopping it 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 targeted 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 “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 tearing down one other dwelling 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 middle.
Just 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 website’s first constructing going up is a therapeutic foster dwelling. Plans embody housing to steadily reunite households, a group backyard, and a spot to carry ceremonies. Doyle mentioned the purpose is that, ultimately, residents will help construct their very own small properties, working with skilled builders educated to supply psychological well being assist.
She mentioned some of the vital elements of this work “is that we finish it.”
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 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 doesn’t exist. Last 12 months’s federal grant and program cuts additionally fueled competitors for philanthropic {dollars}.
Kaala’s Village is predicted to value $5 million. The affiliation is constructing in phases as cash is available in. Doyle mentioned the group hopes to open the foster dwelling by spring, and household housing the next 12 months.
The website is a couple of minutes’ drive from Lonny and Teyon’s childhood dwelling. 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 dwelling to Kaala’s Village.
As for their very own dwelling, they hope to revive it — one room at a time.
“Just piece by piece,” Lonny mentioned. “We’ve got to do something. We’ve got these young ones watching.”
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