As an arctic front barreled toward the New York City region, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed an executive order on Sunday requiring local governments across the state to take homeless people off the streets to shelters in freezing temperatures.

The order, which goes into effect early Tuesday, requires local governments to remove homeless people by force, if necessary, once the temperature drops to 32 degrees Fahrenheit or below. The governor’s order says that to protect public safety, “the state can take appropriate steps, including involuntary placement.”

“It’s about love. It’s about compassion. It’s about helping one another and basic human decency,” Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, told NY1.

News of the measure rippled across the state, eliciting a variety of responses from advocates even as it raised questions about how the order would be carried out. In New York City, the mayor’s office said the order appeared to duplicate what the city was already doing to protect homeless people during cold weather and questioned the legality of forcible removal, signaling yet another rift in the tense relationship between Mr. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, a fellow Democrat. “We support the intent of the executive order,” the mayor’s press secretary, Karen Hinton, said in a statement, “but to forcibly remove all homeless individuals in freezing weather, as the governor has ordered, will require him to pass state law.”