In Lodge Grass, Montana, a Crow Community Works To Rebuild From Meth’s Destruction

LODGE GRASS, Mont. — Brothers Lonny and Teyon Fritzler walked among the tall grass and cottonwood trees surrounding their condemned childhood home near the Little Bighorn River and dreamed of ways to rebuild.

It was on the rolling meadow outside the one-story clapboard house that Lonny learned from his grandfather how to break horses. It was there that Teyon learned from his grandmother how to harvest buffalo berries. It’s also where they watched their father become addicted to meth.

Teyon, now 34, started using the drug at age 15 with his father. Lonny, 41, started after college, which he said was partly due to the stress of caring for his grandfather who had dementia. Their own meth addiction persisted for years, outliving the lives of their father and grandfather.

They had to leave their home in Lodge Grass, a town of about 500 people on the Crow Indian Reservation, to recover. Methamphetamine use is widespread here.

The brothers stayed with an aunt in Oklahoma while they learned to live without meth. Their homestead has sat empty for years: the horse corral’s beams are broken and its roof has collapsed, the garage is tilting, and the house is in need of major repairs. Such crumbling structures are common in this Native American community, hammered by the effects of methamphetamine addiction. Lonny said some homes in disrepair would cost too much to repair. It is common for several generations to gather under the same roof, sometimes for cultural reasons but also due to the lack of housing in the region.

“We have houses in ruins, one here burned down, a lot of houses that are not habitable,” Lonny said, describing the few neighboring houses.

In Lodge Grass, an estimated 60 percent of residents ages 14 and older struggle with drug or alcohol addiction, according to a local survey commissioned by the Mountain Shadow Association, a local, Native-led nonprofit. For many community members, buildings in disrepair are symbols of this struggle. But signs of renewal are appearing. In recent years, the city has demolished more than two dozen abandoned buildings. Now, for the first time in decades, new businesses are springing up and becoming new symbols of the city’s efforts to recover from the effects of meth.

One of these new buildings, a daycare center, 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 formerly abandoned house that had tested positive for traces of methamphetamine.

“People were crying,” said Megkian Doyle, who runs the Mountain Shadow Association, which opened the center. “It was the first time you could see new, tangible things happening in town.”

The nonprofit is also behind the city’s latest construction project: a place where families can recover from addiction. 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 working families to live drug and alcohol free.

Although the project is still far from complete, residents often stop by to observe the progress.

“There’s a wave of hope at ground level that starts to rise around your ankles,” Doyle said.

Two of the builders on this project are Lonny and Teyon Fritzler. They see this work as an opportunity to help rebuild their community within the Apsáalooke Nation, also known as the Crow Tribe.

“When I got into the construction business, I actually thought God was punishing me,” Lonny said. “But now, coming back, building these walls, I’m like, ‘Wow. It’s ours now.'”

Meth ‘never left’

Methamphetamine use is a long-standing public health epidemic in the United States and is increasingly contributing to the nation’s overdose crisis. The drug has been devastating in Indian Country, a term that encompasses tribal jurisdictions and some areas populated by Native American populations.

Native Americans face the highest rates of methamphetamine addiction in the United States, compared to any other demographic group.

“Meth has never left our communities,” said AC Locklear, CEO of the National Indian Health Board, a nonprofit organization that works to improve health in Indian Country.

Many reservations are in rural areas, where rates of methamphetamine use are higher than in cities. As a group, Native Americans face high rates of poverty, chronic illness and mental illness – all risk factors for addiction. These conditions are rooted in more than a century of systemic discrimination, a byproduct of colonization. Meanwhile, the Indian Health Service, which provides health care to Native Americans, is chronically underfunded. Budget cuts under the Trump administration have reduced health programs nationwide.

LeeAnn Bruised Head, a recently retired public health advisor with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, said that despite the challenges, tribal nations have developed strong survival skills drawn from their traditions. For example, the Ravens have retained the language of their nation; neighbors are often family, or considered as such; and many tribal members rely on their clans to mentor their children, who eventually become mentors themselves to the next generation.

“Strength here, support here,” said Bruised Head, who is part of the Crow Tribe. “You can’t get this anywhere else.”

Signs of reconstruction

One fall day, Quincy Dabney greeted people arriving for lunch at the Lodge Grass Welcome Center. The center recently opened in a former church to offer people help staying sober or a free meal. Dabney volunteers at the center. He is also the mayor of the city.

Dabney helped organize community cleanup days starting in 2017, during which people picked up trash in yards and along roadsides. The focus eventually shifted to demolishing empty, condemned homes, which Dabney said had become locations for the sale, distribution and consumption of methamphetamine, often during the day while children played nearby.

“There was no stopping him here,” Dabney said.

The problem has not disappeared yet. In 2024, authorities dismantled a multistate trafficking operation based on the Crow reservation that distributed drugs to other reservations in Montana. This is an example of how drug traffickers target tribal nations as sales and distribution centers.

A few blocks from where Dabney spoke were the remains of a stone building where someone had spray-painted “Stop Meth” on its roofless walls. There are, however, signs of change, he added.

Dabney pointed across the street to a field where a trailer sat empty for years before the city removed it. The city was halfway through demolishing another run-down home on the next block. Another house on the same street was being cleaned for a new tenant: a new mental health worker at the shelter.

Next door, work was underway on the new drug rehab campus, called Kaala’s Village. Kaala means “grandmother” in raven.

The first building on the site to be constructed is a therapeutic reception home. Plans include housing to gradually reunite families, a community garden and a place to hold ceremonies. Doyle said the goal is that eventually residents will be able to help build their own tiny homes, working with experienced builders trained to provide mental health support.

She said one of the most important aspects of this work “is that we finish it.”

Citizens and tribal organizations said the political chaos of Trump’s first year back in office showed the problem with relying on federal programs. This highlights the need for more effort at a local level, such as what is happening at Lodge Grass. But there is still no reliable system to finance these efforts. Last year’s cuts to federal grants and programs also fueled competition for philanthropic dollars.

Kaala Village is expected to cost $5 million. The association grows gradually as money arrives. Doyle said the group hopes to open the foster home by spring and family housing the following year.

The site is a short drive from Lonny and Teyon’s childhood home. In addition to building the walls of the new facility, they are receiving training to provide mental health support. Ultimately, they hope to work alongside people returning to Kaala village.

As for their own home, they hope to restore it, one room at a time.

“Just piece by piece,” Lonny said. “We have to do something. We have these young people looking at us.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of KFF’s primary operating programs, an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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