Try to use the 0.2.8 version of pysftp library.
$ pip uninstall pysftp && pip install pysftp==0.2.8
And try with this:
try:
ftp = pysftp.Connection(host, username=user, password=password)
except:
print("Couldn't connect to ftp")
return False
Why this? Basically is a bug with the 0.2.9 of pysftp here all details https://github.com/Yenthe666/auto_backup/issues/47