Resolutions Living, the $7.7 million Santa Monica property where Presley Gerber was pronounced ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, operates as an upscale co-ed recovery residence featuring seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a movie theater, gym, city and mountain views plus a fully stocked kitchen with chef-prepared meals, marketed as part of a program offering support for addiction, mєntal health and co-occurring disorders through a three-phase recovery approach staffed by counselors, therapists, yoga instructors and other specialists, yet California Department of Health Care Services records show it is not licensed as a residential substance-use disorder treatment facility and appears to function as a sober-living environment or recovery residence, a distinction that has drawn regulatory scrutiny after his dєatᩚh.
State regulators launched an inquiry following a complaint from a reform advocate who noted that a 27-year-old man entered seeking help and was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ the following morning, with the department reviewing whether the home was illegally providing services requiring a license; sober living homes are generally not required to be licensed so long as no formal addiction treatment occurs on site, creating a gray area that critics say is filled with loopholes, while the related outpatient arm, Resolutions Therapeutic Services on Wilshire Boulevard, also sits outside certain DHCS licensing categories.
The facility’s founder and executive clinical director, psychologist Reza Nabavi, has a documented history that resurfaced in coverage from Page Six, USA Today and others: in 2002 he was arrested twice in connection with methamphetamine-related offenses, including one incident involving a 15-year-old girl, pleading no contest to possession of a controlled substance and receiving probation, after which his 2004 and 2005 applications for psychology registration were denied by the California Board of Psychology on grounds including the convictions, controlled-substance use and unprofessional conduct; he later obtained registration as a psychological ᴀssistant under probationary terms that included monitoring, treatment and random testing, ultimately receiving his psychologist license in 2006 with the probation terminated early in 2008, and the license remains active through 2028, following earlier work as director of family services at the now-closed celebrity rehab Promises Malibu before founding Resolutions around 2013.
Experts quoted by People and Entertainment Weekly explained that overdoses can and do occur inside treatment or sober-living settings when residents secretly obtain drugs, when tolerance has dropped after abstinence making relapse more lєthaℓ, or when proximity to others discussing use triggers cravings, and in Gerber’s case reports indicated he arrived after contacting a coach following substance use, with questions raised about why certain substances might have been available; the facility has not publicly commented in detail, and as of early October the police investigation into how any drugs entered the premises continues alongside the deferred medical examiner findings.
