County leaders outside New York City are pushing back against Mayor Eric Adams' decision Tuesday to expand allowing city-funded housing vouchers for homeless New Yorkers to be used outside the five boroughs — stoking fears an additional need would push smaller local departments to the brink of collapse.

Adams on Tuesday expanded city-funded housing vouchers issued to homeless people to allow them to be used anywhere in the state as part of efforts to ease the homeless population in city shelters. Officials are scrambling to make way for more asylum seekers as a record number crossed the southern border in the last month.

"While counties recognize the dire situation the city is facing, we are gravely concerned that the plan announced today will only exacerbate the affordable housing crisis that counties across the state are experiencing," state Association of Counties Executive Director Stephen Acquario said in a statement Tuesday. "We are also concerned that this action will add additional strain on county services like mental health, public health, and education, that are already stretched to the breaking point in many counties."

Acquario said the decision is proof of federal negligence and refusal to address the migrant crisis, and federal representatives need to provide better leadership to state and local officials, but added the city must reverse its expanded housing voucher initiative in the meantime.

"Shifting a problem from one part of the state to another does not solve anything — it simply creates more problems," Acquario said.

Hochul on Tuesday said the decision will help homeless people in New York City transition to apartments. She added it would prevent officials from shipping or forcing asylum seekers to upstate communities, but it doesn't mean that's where they'll go.

"There's no way of knowing how many [people] that will be, but it's also not forcing them to go upstate," Hochul said. "This is just one more tool they have is to open it up."

County leaders are also concerned the change will exacerbate the state's insufficient supply of affordable housing.

"We have a supply problem, right?" Hochul added. "So it'll be a challenge to find even available apartments for these individuals. And that's something we're trying to tackle. I want more housing that's affordable built, and i won't stop until we do more."