LODGE GRASS, Mont. — Brothers Lonnie and Teyon Fritzler walked among the tall grass and cottonwood trees surrounding their boarded-up childhood home near the Little Bighorn River and dreamed of how to restore it.
On the rolling prairie near a one-story clapboard house, Lonnie learned from his grandfather how to bridle horses. It was here that Teyon learned to pick buffalo berries from his grandmother. There they watched their father become addicted to methamphetamine.
Teyon, now 34, began using the drug at age 15 with his father. Lonnie, 41, started doing it after college, which he said was partly due to the stress of caring for his grandfather with dementia. Their own methamphetamine addiction continued for years, outlasting the lives of their father and grandfather.
To recover, they had to leave their home in Lodge Grass, a town of about 500 people on the Crow Indian Reservation. Methamphetamine use is widespread here.
The brothers stayed with their aunt in Oklahoma while they learned to live without meth. Their family property has been empty for years – the beams of the horse pen are broken, the roof has caved in, the garage is toppling over, and the house is in need of major repairs. Such crumbling structures are common in Native American communities suffering from the effects of methamphetamine addiction. Lonnie said it would cost too much to repair some of the homes, which are in disrepair. Several generations usually gather under one roof, sometimes for cultural reasons, but also due to the lack of housing in the area.
“We have houses that are destroyed, one that burned down here, a lot of houses that are unlivable,” Lonnie said, describing several nearby houses.
In Lodge Grass, about 60% of residents ages 14 and older have a drug or alcohol addiction problem, according to a local survey commissioned by the Mountain Shadow Association, a local Native-led nonprofit organization. For many city residents, dilapidated buildings are symbols of this struggle. But signs of renewal are emerging. In recent years, more than two dozen abandoned buildings have been demolished in the city. Now, for the first time in decades, new businesses are springing up, becoming new symbols of the city's efforts to recover from the effects of meth.
One of these new buildings, a kindergarten, arrived in October 2024. A parade of people followed the small wooden building through the city as it was delivered on the back of a truck. It replaced a previously abandoned house where traces of methamphetamine were found.
“People were crying,” said Megkian Doyle, who heads the Mountain Shadow Association that opened the center. “It was the first time you could see new and tangible things coming to the city.”
The nonprofit is also behind the city's latest building project: a place where families can heal from addiction together. The plan is to build an entire campus in the city that will provide mental health resources, housing for children whose parents need treatment elsewhere, and housing for families working to live drug- and alcohol-free lives.
Although the project is still a long way from completion, local residents often stop by to watch its progress.
“There's a wave of hope at ground level that starts to rise up to your ankles,” Doyle said.
The two builders on this project are Lonnie and Teyon Fritzler. They see this work as a chance to help rebuild their community within the Apsalaoke people, also known as the Crow Tribe.
“When I started working in construction, I really thought God was punishing me,” Lonnie said. “But now, coming back and building these walls, I think, 'Wow, this is ours now.'
Meth “Never Left”
Methamphetamine use is long-standing public health epidemic throughout the United States and makes a growing contribution to the national overdose crisis. The drug has had devastating effects in Indian country. term which covers tribal jurisdictions and certain areas where Native Americans live.
Native Americans face highest rate of methamphetamine addiction in the US compared to any other demographic group.
“Meth has never left our communities,” A.S. said. Locklear, CEO National Health Council of Indiaa non-profit organization dedicated to improving health in Indian Country.
Many reservations are located in rural areas where higher rates methamphetamine use compared to urban areas. As a group, Native Americans face high rates of poverty and chronic illness and mental illness. Risk factors for addiction. These conditions are rooted in over a century of systemic discriminationa by-product of colonization. Meanwhile, the Indian Health Service, which provides medical care to Native Americans, was chronically underfunded. Cuts under the Trump administration cut health care programs across the country.
LeeAnn Bruised Head, a recently retired public health adviser to the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, said despite the challenges, tribal peoples have developed strong coping skills by drawing on their traditions. For example, the Crow people retained the language of their nation; neighbors are often family members or are considered such; and many tribal members rely on their clans to mentor children, who eventually become mentors to the next generation themselves.
“Strength is here, support is here,” said Bruised Head, a member of the Crow Tribe. “You can't get this anywhere else.”
Signs of recovery
On a fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted people coming to lunch at the Lodge Grass drop-in center. The center recently opened in a former church as a place where people can come for help staying sober or for free food. Dabney volunteers at the center. He is also the mayor of the city.
Beginning in 2017, Dabney helped organize community cleanups in which people collected trash from yards and along roadsides. The focus eventually shifted to demolishing empty, abandoned houses, which Dabney said had become places for methamphetamine to be sold, distributed and consumed, often during the day while children played nearby.
“There was nothing here to stop it,” Dabney said.
However, the problem did not go away. In 2024, officials collapsed the multistate human trafficking operation based on the Crow reservation, which distributed drugs to other reservations in Montana. This was one example of how drug dealers targeted tribal nations as sales and distribution centers.
A few blocks from where Dabney spoke stood the ruins of a stone building whose roofless walls someone had spray-painted with the words “Stop Meth.” Still, he said, there are signs of change.
Dabney pointed across the street to the field where the trailer sat empty for years before the city removed it. The city was halfway through demolishing another dilapidated house on the next block. Another house on the same street was being spruced up for a new tenant: a new mental health worker at the asylum.
Just down the road, work was underway on a new addiction treatment campus called Kaala Village. Kaala means “grandmother” in the Crow language.
The first building to be built on the site will be a therapeutic foster home. Plans include housing to gradually reunite families, a community garden and a ceremony space. Doyle said the goal is for residents to eventually be able to help build their own tiny homes, working with experienced builders trained to provide mental health support.
One of the most important aspects of this work, she said, “is that we finish it.”
Citizens and tribal organizations said the political chaos of Trump's first year as president shows the problem is relying on federal programs. This highlights the need for more grassroots efforts like what is happening in Lodge Grass. But there is still no reliable system for financing these efforts. Last year's cuts to federal grants and programs also increased competition for philanthropic funds.
Kaala Village is expected to cost $5 million. The association is being built in stages as money becomes available. Doyle said the group hopes to open a foster home by spring and family housing next year.
The location is a short drive from Lonnie and Teyon's childhood home. In addition to building the walls of the new facility, they are being trained to provide psychological assistance. Ultimately, they hope to work alongside the people who return home to Kaala's village.
As for their own home, they hope to restore it, one room at a time.
“In parts,” Lonnie said. “We have to do something. These young people are watching us.”
KFF health news is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF, an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Find out more about KFF.
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