SANTA CRUZ - The Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to give $17,000 to the Homeless Services Center to keep its winter shelter in DeLaveaga Park open for another month, but reiterated the need for other cities to share in future funding.

"This isn't the first time that I feel we've been in the position of the council taking care of financial missteps," said Councilwoman Lynn Robinson, saying the shelter should have been managed better to grapple with budget cuts. The shelter lost $24,000 in state funding this year.

Feeding the homeless in Miami could soon be against the law, unless you've been properly trained. The Miami City Commission was set to consider a proposal Thursday that would prohibit unauthorized people and groups from feeding the homeless downtown unless they've gone through special training, however, the issue was not discussed. It's not known yet when it'll be placed back on the agenda for first reading again.

On a frozen Monday, as homeless people in Colorado Springs endured hell, the City Council cast a no camping ordinance into purgatory.

Advocates of a law making it illegal to camp in public rights-of-way can still work on it until it comes back to the council in February. But several council members made it clear they don’t like the idea, especially because no one has yet devised an alternative for where the homeless can go if they are evicted.

Councilman Tom Gallagher easily was the most strident opponent, recalling how he once lived under a bridge himself.

“Where else do they go?” Gallagher asked. “The gauge of a community is how it treats its least fortunate. I’m more compassionate than this ordinance, and I’m a son of a bitch.”