Hundreds of families are being made homeless every week in “no-fault” evictions by landlords keen to cash in on rising property prices or put the rent up.

Analysis of quarterly eviction and homelessness data by the pressure group Generation Rent suggests that 216 households evicted every week in England under section 21 of the 1988 Housing Act are becoming homeless. These are known as no-fault evictions because landlords do not need a reason such as rent arrears or property damage to kick tenants out. The end of a private tenancy is now the single biggest cause of homelessness in England, with the number of cases more than trebling from 4,580 to 16,320 between 2009 and 2017.

The analysis reveals for the first time that 94% of this rise can be blamed on no-fault evictions, which have more than doubled since 2009.

This comes as the government launches a £100m strategy to end rough sleeping by 2027, after the numbers grew this decade by 168%.

Researchers found that for every 100 additional section 21 repossessions by bailiffs, 123 homelessness cases were accepted by councils (there were more homeless cases than evictions because councils are sometimes able to offer families temporary accommodation before they are formally evicted).

Private tenancies can also be ended when tenants breach their contracts, but the researchers found no correlation between these types of repossessions and the rise in homelessness.

Rough sleeping has grown by 168% since 2010. Photograph: Dinendra Haria/Rex/Shutterstock

Laura Johnstone, her husband and two sons are being evicted from their rented house in Wandsworth, south London. It is the second time they have been evicted under section 21 in two years. “Our landlord is selling so we have got to move again,” she said. “With young children it is a nightmare. It is awful to live like this, where every year you’ve got to move. We’ve got boxes that we haven’t unpacked. Everything is so temporary.”

The family were made homeless last year when they were evicted from a squalid flat after complaining to the landlord and Lambeth council.

“They issued us with a section 21 but because I’d complained to the council they had to wait six months. They did some of the works but there were still rats and cockroaches. Then they issued us with another section 21 and evicted us,” she said.

Johnstone said it was unfair that landlords could evict families who had done nothing wrong. “It is ruining my children’s lives. They have no stability,” she said.

More than 50,000 people have signed a petition launched by Generation Rent to scrap section 21. “The ability of landlords to evict tenants without grounds allows them to cash in their assets and leave society to pick up the tab in the form of expensive temporary accommodation and misery for the people affected,” said Dan Wilson Craw, director of Generation Rent.

He added that the government must give tenants more security if it is serious about reducing homelessness. “Councils have new responsibilities to prevent homelessness, and the government has just launched a strategy to end rough sleeping, but they have no chance of success if landlords can continue to kick out tenants with impunity,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing said: “We have introduced new measures to stop so-called retaliatory evictions, but we know we need to do more and we are consulting on three-year minimum tenancies.”

The English Housing Survey has found that 63% of tenancies ended by landlords are because they want to sell or use the property. Because of the shortage of council properties, many of the families who lose their homes in this way end up in temporary accommodation, which costs the taxpayer £845m a year.

• This article was amended on 30 August 2018 to remove an inaccurate reference to Lambeth council having placed the family in inadequate temporary accommodation for three months.