Navajo Nation PD ride-along: Fallout of sober living crisis on Phoenix streets

PHOENIX - Missing Native Americans are getting lost in a crisis.

A sober living Medicaid scheme victimizes as many as 8,000 tribal members, leaving many displaced as fake rehab centers shut down.

FOX 10 Investigator Justin Lum went on a ride-along with Navajo Nation Police for "Operation Rainbow Bridge" to confront the crisis head on.

'This crisis is huge'

Last month, the president of Navajo Nation signed a declaration of a public health state of emergency to get more funding for "Operation Rainbow Bridge."

The purpose is to rescue tribal members who are now on the streets as nearly 200 Medicaid providers lost funding due to suspensions.

"This crisis is huge. It’s larger than what we first expected because right now, we just barely scratched the surface of it. We still need to make a lot more contacts and there’s a lot of people out there," says Sgt. Roland Dash with Navajo Nation Police.

Sgt. Dash and Navajo Nation PD special operations coordinator Harland Cleveland have spent a lot of time in Phoenix searching for people victimized by the sober living scheme.

Many targets are Native Americans once recruited to live in homes as long as they’re enrolled in the American Indian Health Program via Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), Arizona’s Medicaid agency.

In many cases, victims are kept intoxicated and allowed to abuse drugs while organizers bill the state for providing services.

Cleveland says his teams have made contact with a few hundred people affected.

"It’ll be kind of more … they’ll self-report and say, ‘I was at a facility.’ Then we’ll ask ‘Do you remember where this facility was or do you remember the date?’ And they’ll say 'somewhere up the road or up that way.’ Majority of the time, they don’t really know the name of the facility, or they’ll just know kinda like the individual that’s in charge of the house," Cleveland says.

A family in need

The morning after receiving a call from a mom of four who is now homeless in Phoenix, we hit the road with Navajo Nation Police to find her.

"I’m located at the Storage King U.S.A. on Indian School and 71st Avenue," she said over the phone.

It’s where Annaletta Smith and the lives of her family are packed up in a storage unit.

Cleveland: "And where do you guys stay at night?"

Smith: "Wherever. Like parks, like wherever we can …"

Annaletta is Navajo and says she was staying at a home run by Motherland Counseling, LLC until she was told to leave just days prior.

Smith: "I guess they found out it’s like just costing too much money to run the facility with no income coming in for them."

Records show AHCCCS suspended payment to Motherland in May over allegations of Medicaid fraud including billing for a member who was deceased.

Now Smith and her kids are just trying to escape the scorching heat.

Justin: "What is your hope for just today?"

Smith: "It would be such a relief to just to get out of this, going from place to place, like actually just have a room, a motel room to be somewhere I know we don’t have to be worried about where we’re heading next and somewhere we can just sleep the whole night."

Sgt. Dash takes down her information and calls for help.

A transport with Operation Rainbow Bridge showed up to help the family. They were taken to a motel and from that point, affordable housing is the next plan.

Non-Arizona Native Americans impacted

Our crew gets back in the car in search of more Native people on the streets.

Some don’t accept services, but even getting them water and snacks is a step forward.

"It could be a non-Indian, somebody from back east, back west, up north, Montana, Alaska, we’ll treat everybody the same, provide all the assistance that we can," Sgt. Dash says.

We know Native Americans are being brought from New Mexico to Arizona, but Montana and the Dakotas too?

"Yes, from Montana area all the way up to Alaska being transported down this way here to Phoenix," Sgt. Dash said.

This leads us to Laura McGee.

"I think it's much more deeper and much more systematic than we're aware," McGee said.

She lives in Montana.

In March, her brother Josh Racine was recruited from Blackfeet Nation in Browning to go to a sober living home in Phoenix.

An email to Josh from Sunrise Native Recovery shows a flight ticket that was booked for him.

Records from Arizona's Department of Health Services show the outpatient treatment center as a licensed provider, but the status says it closed in October 2022.

McGee says he didn’t stay long at the facility and ended up on the streets of Phoenix while someone had his phone.

"The family began again, receiving strange messages that Josh had boarded a plane back to Montana. We knew that wasn't true because he didn't arrive in Bozeman at the time that he was supposed to," McGee said.

McGee filed a missing persons report in Phoenix.

FOX 10 reached out to the admissions supervisor with Sunrise but did not get a response.

Josh’s relatives eventually found him near 75th Avenue and McDowell Road – more than two months after he left Montana.

"They just wanted to get him out as soon as possible, and drove all night until they arrived back into Montana," she said.

The sober living crisis once again crosses state lines.

Justin: "Have you ever seen a crime, a network, or scheme like this?"

Sgt. Dash: "Of all my years, no."

If you know a victim in need of resources, the state has provided a hotline. Dial 2-1-1 and press 7.

Operation Rainbow Bridge also has a hotline and it can be reached at 1-855-HELP-ORB.

If you have any tips on possible fraud, you can report it by filling out the form at https://www.azahcccs.gov/Fraud/ReportFraud/onlineform.aspx

UPDATE: After our story aired, representatives from Sunrise Native Recovery reached out to FOX 10 to say they could not comment specifically on the patient who went missing because of HIPPA.  They say patients can leave on their own accord. CEO Kevin Mailloux says when Josh was found, they offered to fly him home, but he declined.